Rating: 3/10 – “meh”; woeful only just about covers how bad this movie is, from the wooden performances, to the haphazard scripting, to Yates’s casual engagement with the material, and all the way to the creaky use of CGI to simulate the African backgrounds – at no point does The Legend of Tarzan ever feel as if it has any intention of putting any real effort into things.

Rating: 4/10 – four astronauts are locked inside a chamber designed to simulate the timescale of a planned mission, and the psychological effects of such a journey, but as the simulation nears its finish, the quartet find that things aren’t entirely what they seem; a mystery thriller that doesn’t need its sci-fi trappings (and where the mystery is unengaging), 400 Days plays out like an old Outer Limits episode but without the succinctness that show could provide, all of which leaves the viewer trying hard to make sense of what’s going on, and trying equally hard to decide whether or not they should be bothered about it all.

Rating: 5/10 – the story of Queen Kristina of Sweden (Buska), who in the ten years she ruled her country, did her best to bring enlightenment and peace for everyone, and who fought against her advisors’ insistence that she marry and secure her throne for the future; reminiscent of the Euro-pudding movies so prevalent in the late Seventies and throughout the Eighties, The Girl King lacks a coherent shooting style that isn’t helped by Hans Funck’s scattershot approach to the editing, but it does keep things admirably simple (if not too simple at times), and remains unexpectedly watchable thanks to Kaurismäki’s determined effort to convert Kristina’s reign (and her presumed lesbianism) into historical soap opera.

Rating: 7/10 – Louis Theroux, intrepid (and annoying) documentarian turns his attention onto Scientology, and attempts to understand why the organisation is so litigious and defensive about its practices; Theroux teams up with ex-Scientology bigwig Marty Rathbun to learn about what goes on behind the scenes, but succeeds largely in having childish spats with one of the organisation’s “security” team (very funny indeed), while organising a filmed representation of a meeting where Scientology leader David Miscavage threw a major tantrum, all of which leaves My Scientology Movie feeling arid for long stretches and not quite as illuminating as Theroux might have hoped.

Rating: 5/10 – three Border Patrol guards find themselves in trouble with a Mexican cartel when they stop the wrong car at a checkpoint, and learn that one of them is in even deeper trouble than anyone knew; Transpecos makes good use of its New Mexico locations, and the opening twenty minutes point towards the movie being a tense, tightly constructed thriller, but sadly it soon degenerates into an unconvincing, meandering collection of scenes that are often dramatically inert, and which stretch the narrative in a variety of ineffective ways that it can’t recover from.

Rating: 4/10 – retired DEA agent-cum-“ghost” Michael Decker (Seagal) rescues a stripper (Ewen) from her abusive boyfriend (by killing him) and finds himself helping her steal €2m of the man’s money – which doesn’t go down well with his drug czar boss; another Romanian-shot quickie from Seagal that keeps his stunt double, his running double, and his walking double in gainful employment, End of a Gun is made bearable thanks to a good performance from Piersic Jr, and Waxman’s ingenuity when shooting low-budget shootouts, but otherwise it’s business as usual, which is to say, pretty awful (and the less said about ex-Sugababes member Ewen, the better).

As the opening credits of I, Daniel Blake are displayed, the viewer gets to hear a conversation that the movie’s title character (Johns) is having with a “healthcare professional”. The “healthcare professional”, a woman, is asking a series of questions that have nothing to do with Daniel’s recent heart attack. As he gets more and more frustrated with her, it becomes clear that he’s already become stuck in a welfare system that can’t deviate from its proscribed formulas and rules. The end result is a situation where Daniel’s health is such that his doctor and his consultant have advised him that he shouldn’t work until he’s fully recovered. But he’s unable to claim the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) that would tide him over until he’s better; he’s just not unwell enough as judged by the criteria. And with the so-called “healthcare professional” not having followed up about his health with his doctor, Daniel finds that if she had, he would have had enough points.

But he’s stuck with having to appeal the decision, which isn’t as straightforward as he expects. While he waits for the appeal to be heard, he has no choice but to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), which is for people who are fit and looking for work. Needing money to live on but now finding himself stuck in a twilight world where strict rules often fail to help an individual’s needs, Daniel soon discovers that getting any kind of financial support is much, much harder than it looks (or should be). A carpenter who’s mostly worked on building sites for forty years, and who has been recently widowed, Daniel isn’t computer literate (instead he’s “pencil literate”, as he puts it) and struggles to fill in the requisite forms online. His efforts to look for work – because he hasn’t got any evidence of doing so that the Job Centre will accept – are looked upon unfavourably, and he’s threatened with sanctions if he doesn’t make more of an effort.

Through all of this, Daniel meets and befriends a young, single mother of two called Katie (Squires). Having had to move from London to Newcastle in order to live somewhere better than a homeless persons’ hostel, Katie is also struggling for money. Daniel helps her out where he can, mostly in a practical way by helping out around her new home, and in the process he bonds with her two children, Daisy (Shann) and Dylan (McKiernan). They support each other, their unlikely friendship borne out of their frustrating efforts to get the UK welfare system to help them in the short term. But even their friendship is put to the test by the system’s lack of support, and when Katie makes a decision that has (potentially) wider consequences, it causes a rift between them, and both find themselves alone again.

A few years ago, Ken Loach announced his retirement from movie making. He’d made Jimmy’s Hall (2014), and wasn’t sure he could continue with the same amount of confidence in his abilities as he had before. It was an understandable feeling, but one that many people hoped Loach would overcome. Obviously, he has. But if anyone had any doubts that Loach wasn’t capable of maintaining his passion for movies, and the making of them, then I, Daniel Blake is the movie to dispel those doubts. Laced with Loach’s trademark vitriol when dealing with blinkered authority, this is a movie that shows Loach has lost none of his skill in dissecting the ills lurking at the heart of British society, and the ways in which the under-privileged are treated with such disdain.

Along with regular screenwriter and collaborator Paul Laverty, Loach has fashioned a caustic tale of intransigence within the UK welfare system, and in doing so, has highlighted some of the more farcical aspects of said system. There’s a scene where Daniel, having given his CV to a number of potential employers, receives a phone call from one of them offering him a job. But because his ESA appeal is still pending he’s unable to take up the offer. This causes the employer to brand him a timewaster and someone who’d rather take benefits than work. It’s an untenable situation, and Daniel has no answer to it except to continue to plough through the mountain of red tape that seems designed to keep him from getting any money at all.

Likewise, Katie has her own problems in getting any JSA. New to the city she misses her first Job Centre appointment by minutes and is told she can’t claim any money because she’s late. There’s no attempt to allow for extenuating circumstances, and when she protests she’s asked to leave; no one is interested in hearing her out. Loach uses examples like these to show just how unyielding and implacable the system is, and how it keeps knocking people down at every opportunity. If, at the start of the movie your understanding of the UK welfare system is that it isn’t as flawed as everyone makes out, then that understanding will be completely washed away by the movie’s end.

Loach’s passionate, didactic approach is, however, as heavy-handed and lacking in subtlety as ever. He and Laverty pile on the problems and the knockbacks and the condescension and the impugnity of uncaring authority figures with little regard for the drama of the piece. The movie is relentless in this respect, adding to Daniel’s woes in almost every scene, and by the end it’s an exhausting experience just watching a once proud man pushed to the limit of what he can endure. Katie also suffers, her efforts to keep her children safe and healthy meaning that she has to experience the opposite. With Loach and Laverty keen to prove just how terrible being dependent on the welfare system can be, their efforts to show just how bad it all is soon feels like they’re trying too hard. It shouldn’t take long for the viewer to understand and appreciate what they’re saying – and within the first twenty minutes, easily – but they can’t resist making it worse the longer the movie continues.

This makes the movie sound like a distressing polemic, a one-sided view of life in 21st century Britain. And it is, but thankfully it’s leavened by a streak of mordaunt humour that makes things more tolerable, and which allows Loach to lighten up from time to time and acknowledge that no matter how bad things get, even the most downtrodden of people can find something positive to fall back on. Daniel and Katie have each other, and their shared experiences help make things more bearable for both of them. Loach allows them (and the viewer) hope – and that’s the right thing to do. How else does anyone survive being treated so badly by a system that’s supposed to be helping them?

Loach is ably supported by two commendable performances from Johns and Squires. Johns is a comedian making his feature debut, and he gives a beautifully judged portrayal of a man falling into despair but who’s determined not to give in. His plaintive, frustrated expressions speak volumes, while his attitude and physical presence in certain scenes are deliberately downplayed to show how much his will to fight has been whittled away. Squires is equally impressive, making Katie an entirely believable character whose focus is always on her children, and who is willing to make whatever sacrifice she can to keep them with her. There’s a scene in a food bank that is easily the movie’s best moment, and Squires is magnificent, letting Katie’s fears and desperation overwhelm her to heartbreaking effect.

In the end, much of I, Daniel Blake isn’t “enjoyable” in the traditional sense, and it’s not meant to be, clearly. Loach is on a mission to highlight the absurdity and misery that go hand in hand in today’s Britain if you’re seeking government assistance, and he more than succeeds, even if at times it’s at the expense of narrative consistency (the one authority figure Katie encounters who doesn’t add to her woes, only lets her off the hook because if he didn’t, the script wouldn’t be in a position to allow her to make the decision that causes a rift between her and Daniel), or credible characterisations (one Job Centre operative is so callous and uncaring it’s beyond caricature). But again, Loach isn’t exactly known for his subtlety, but he is aware of the message he’s sending, and in that respect, it’s good to have him back after his “so-called” retirement.

Rating: 8/10 – Loach’s second movie to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes – the first was The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) – I, Daniel Blake is a powerful, depressing, enraging, and yet touching movie made by a director who can still get angry at the injustice he sees being meted out to Britain’s social underclass; whatever your view on Loach’s politics, one thing is undeniable: he’s a director, who at the age of eighty, is still capable of making vital, socially relevant movies after nearly fifty years, and who shows no sign of (really) letting up just yet – and that’s something we should all be grateful for.

This week’s question is a really, really simple one, but also one that relies on people’s awareness of Lulu Wilson’s character and appearance in Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016). The poster below is for the UK re-release on DVD of You Will Kill (2015) (aka Ouija Summoning). Take a look at it, then ask yourself this week’s Question of the Week (see below).

Should the makers of Ouija: Origin of Evil sue for copyright infringement?

In the late Eighties, Winona Ryder appeared in two iconic movies: Beetlejuice (1987) and Heathers (1988). She wouldn’t be twenty for another three/four years. Having that much success so early in her career could now be seen as a bad thing, as the Nineties increasingly showed that fame and fortune were having an adverse effect on her. Dogged by depression and anxiety, Ryder continued to make movies that were incredibly diverse, and which featured varied, challenging performances. But like many of her contemporaries, once the new century arrived she became less and less of a box office draw, and her choice of roles retained their variety but not the critical or commercial acclaim of her earlier work. Nowadays her appearances are more sporadic, though well-received. In particular, her role in Black Swan (2010) and her work on the TV series Stranger Things (2016) have reinforced the idea that she is still as talented as she was in her heyday. Here are five more reminders of just how good an actress Winona Ryder is.

The Crucible (1996) – Character: Abigail Williams

Nicholas Hytner’s adaptation of Arthur Miller’s acclaimed play (and with a script by Miller himself) features a stunning performance from Ryder as the lover of Daniel Day-Lewis’s character who, out of envy, sparks a witch hunt in the town of Salem. Ryder is mesmerising as the vindictive Abigail, and she more than holds her own against the likes of Day-Lewis, Joan Allen, and Paul Scofield, imbuing her character with an angry, yet damaged vulnerability that more than justifies her vengeful actions.

A Scanner Darkly (2006) – Character: Donna Hawthorne

In Richard Linklater’s bold, inventive movie, which features the second fully integrated use of rotoscoping (basically tracing over original movie footage), Ryder is a dealer of Substance D, a drug that has gotten 20% of the American public hooked on it. Keanu Reeves’ undercover government agent becomes emotionally entangled with her, and it’s Ryder’s quietly subtle performance that helps guide the viewer through some of the more labyrinthine aspects of the narrative, and (hopefully) out the other side.

The House of the Spirits (1993) – Character: Blanca Trueba

Based on the novel by Isabel Allende, this arresting look at love and politics during the turbulent years of the military dictatorship in Chile sees Ryder recalling her character’s memories as a child and then following that same character’s adult life, and all the difficulties experienced at both times. It’s a largely supporting role, but Ryder is more than capable of providing a fully rounded character who has an increasing impact on the story the movie is telling. It’s also a testament to Ryder that this was her third costume/historical drama in a row – after Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and The Age of Innocence (1993) – and she retains the virtues that allowed her to give such great performances in those movies as well.

The Iceman (2012) – Character: Deborah Kuklinski

As the unsuspecting wife of real life hitman Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), Ryder gives an understated, yet compelling performance that acts as a credible counterpoint to Shannon’s more expressive role. This was another reminder that Ryder is a fine, intuitive actress when given the right role, and she matches her co-star for intensity when the part requires it, leaving the viewer in no doubt that whatever troubles have plagued her in the past, she’s still more than capable of bringing a somewhat stock character to life.

Square Dance (1987) – Character: Gemma Dillard

In only her second appearance in a movie, Ryder plays a thirteen year old who, having lived in the country with her grandparents (Jason Robards and Jane Alexander) for most of her life, accepts an offer from her mother to go and live with her in the city. She gives a sweet, confident performance in a movie that deserves to be reassessed as it approaches its thirtieth anniversary, and she displays a maturity in the role that few other actresses at that age could muster.

Peter Newmans (Simmons) is essentially a sex therapist, but one with a difference: his job is to convince sexaholics that they should channel their sexual energy into other avenues, such a hobby or work. In essence he’s encouraging his patients to be as celibate as he is. Yes, that’s right, Peter is celibate, and has reached the age of thirty without ever having sex, or even a girlfriend. He’s attracted to his neighbour, would-be chef Michelle (Snow), but she’s already in a relationship, and anyway, he wouldn’t know what to say or do even if she wasn’t. Luckily, Fate steps in when Peter collapses and is rushed to hospital. There he’s told that he has a tumour that has been pressing on his pituitary gland, and this has been the cause of his asexuality. But once the tumour is removed, puberty is going to hit him like a ton of bricks.

And so it proves. Initial attempts by his friends, Rich (Nanjiani) and Luke (Bennett), to get Peter laid don’t work, and it’s not until he wakes up one morning with an erection that Peter finally gets to experience the pleasures of, to begin with, excessive masturbation. It also changes the way he views his work, and he begins to encourage his patients to fully embrace their sexual desires, a change that causes concern for his boss, Caroline (Lynch), who has Peter booked on several publicity spots (he’s written a book on how to avoid “unnecessary” sex). But when Michelle becomes single, Peter’s continued inability to properly express his feelings for it – now thanks to the hormones raging inside him – leads him to alienate her, and also Rich. With only his long-suffering parents (Bello, J.K. Simmons) to turn to, Peter has to find a way of becoming the responsible adult – the man – he would have become if he’d gone through puberty at the right time.

A comedy that wants to be raunchy and sweet at the same time, The Late Bloomer is based on the book, Man-Made: A Memoir of My Body by Ken Baker. So, in essence it’s a true story (Baker did suffer from the same kind of tumour that Peter does), but this is a movie where the approach and the way the material has been handled, will inevitably lead the viewer to wonder if Baker’s experiences have been fairly or even halfway accurately transferred to the screen. Because this is a movie that wavers throughout in its efforts to tell a coherent story. It wants to be a raunchy comedy for the most part, and there are laughs to be had, but this is at odds with the romantic aspects of the material, and the non-existent sympathy for Peter and his situation.

With the movie lacking a clear focus, scenes come and go without any connection to each other, and Simmons is left looking and sounding like a complete doofus. As the movie progresses it becomes clear that the screenplay (assembled by five – count ’em – five screenwriters) and the director are not in sync, and despite several efforts by the cast, are never likely to gel no matter how hard they try. This leaves the movie looking disjointed and poorly assembled. There’s a funny, rewarding, and charming movie to be made out of Baker’s memoir, but this isn’t it.

Rating: 4/10 – a movie that strives to be liked but stumbles at almost every turn in its efforts to do so, The Late Bloomer wastes a ton of potentially humorous situations by ditching subtlety at every opportunity; Pollak’s feature debut as a director, he might be better off choosing any future projects by making sure they have a more polished script, and a better sense of where they’re going (and how to get there).

Like this:

With Halloween and all things spooky just around the corner – unless you’re the BFI and you have the chance to screen John Carpenter’s seminal Halloween (1978), which you do, though not on 31 October, but on the 17th instead – here are ten horror movies you would do well to steer very, very clear of in 2017.

1 – Friday the 13th – After their dreadful remake of the original Friday the 13th (1980), back in 2009, Platinum Dunes try again with another version. Originally planned for release this year, the movie has been put back to October of next year, and with very little in the way of a plot or storyline to be had, this seems to be a production that’s either being made as part of a contractual obligation, or as another attempt at making a quick buck off of Jason Voorhees’s fan club.

2 – Rings – First there was the Japanese original, Ringu (1998), then the inevitable US remake, The Ring (2002), along with sequels from both countries. And now Sadako Yamamura is back, crawling out of another (the same?) well, and killing more people who’ve watched her doing so. The trailer for the movie shows events happening on board a plane, which begs the question: how is everyone on board going to receive a phone call seconds after the video has ended?

3 – World War Z 2 – The first movie started off strong then fell to pieces in its final third, but made enough money to (financially) warrant a sequel. Scheduling problems saw director J.A. Bayona leave the project early on, and little is known – surprise, surprise – about the plot except that it follows on directly from the first movie. Brad Pitt is back, but right now there’s no word on who will be joining him, and with so much up in the air at the moment, there’s a good chance that the movie won’t even see the light of day.

4 – Saw: Legacy – Proving yet again that if you’re making a horror movie series, and you include the words The Final Chapter in what is supposedly the last in the series, then all it means is that a further sequel will turn up eventually. Saw: Legacy is a continuation of the series, but one that nobody really wants or needs. With Jigsaw having been killed off long ago, let’s hope this one doesn’t get bogged down in trying to connect itself with previous outings, and tries at least to do something different, though the phrase, “Let’s play a game”, now seems a little ironic.

5 – Amityville: The Awakening – If ever there was a property that needed to be torn down and never built on again, then it’s 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. Not because of the terrible, tragic events that occurred there in November 1974, but because it might stop movie makers from flogging this particular cinematic dead horse (this is the ninth movie overall). That it’s attracted a crop of well-known names – Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gabriel Mann and Bella Thorne – might encourage some viewers, but with none of the previous entries having garnered much critical support between them, this is unlikely to be any different.

6 – Annabelle 2 – The first movie somehow managed to gross over $250m at the international box office, so a sequel was inevitable, but the basic plotline makes it all sound more confusing than it needs to be, as it seems to provide another origin story for the doll with the rosy cheeks. It’s in the hands of David F. Sandberg (Lights Out), but this is unlikely to stray too far from its The Conjuring roots to be any more effective or challenging (except maybe to watch).

7 – Suspiria – The original, superbly directed by Dario Argento, is a classic Italian horror, and a movie that is a perfect illustration of the phrase “lightning in a bottle”. Argento was never able to replicate or even come close to the power of his now-signature movie, and there’s no indication here that director Luca Guadagnino will manage to come close to it either. And as if to further handicap the movie’s chances of being anywhere near as good as the original, the producers have seen fit to hire Chloë Grace Moretz – a seriously bad move; haven’t they seen Carrie (2013)?

8 – Insidious: Chapter 4 – Another horror sequel where the basic plot is unknown (even to the makers?), this at least brings back Lin Shaye as troubled psychic Elise Rainier, so there’s a degree of quality attached to this movie, but with this many trips to the well already, the likelihood of returning scribe and creator Leigh Whannell fashioning anything really scary is limited. Consistently good box office returns have gotten the series this far, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

9 – Halloween: The Night Evil Died – With Laurie Strode no longer around to fend off or foil her tortured brother, Michael Myers, this outing (the eighth, ignoring Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1983) and the two sequels made by Rob Zombie) has no option but to fall back on the time honoured tradition of there being a wider family presence for Michael to kill in a variety of semi-cool ways. The series ran out of steam a long while back, and as with every other movie on the list, it seems that the producers haven’t caught on yet.

10 – Hellraiser: Judgment – It’s hard to believe perhaps – and especially because most of the previous entries have gone straight to video – but this will be the tenth Hellraiser movie, and in keeping with that particular milestone, much is being promised by writer/director Gary J. Tunnicliffe. But this has the air of a movie being made to ensure Dimension Films retain the franchise rights, and if history has anything to say about that particular motive, then this will be very disappointing indeed.

It may not be obvious at first glance but Disney like to make true stories into movies. Even better is if it’s an inspirational true story. Which is why their production of the true story of Phiona Mutesi isn’t as odd a project as it might seem at first glance. Based on the book, The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers, Mira Nair’s latest movie holds steady to the usual tenets stipulated by Disney when they make a true story into a movie, and the result is a polished but depth-free look at one young girl’s rise from the slums of Uganda to prominence within the world of African chess players.

Phiona (Nalwanga) lives with her mother, Harriet (Nyong’o), her older sister Night (Kyaze), and her two younger brothers, Brian (Kabanza) and Richard. They make a living from selling maize and sweetcorn on the streets of Katwe, one of eight slums in Kampala, Uganda. Early on, Night leaves home to live with her affluent boyfriend. As if her leaving wasn’t enough, Phiona realises that Brian isn’t spending much time selling maize and sweetcorn; instead he’s heading off to do something else. One day, Phiona follows him, and finds that he’s going to a project run by the Sports Outreach Institute, a Christian sports mission. Run by Robert Katende (Oyelowo), the children there are learning how to play chess. Phiona joins the group and it soon becomes obvious that she has a natural aptitude for the game.

Robert encourages her, and when a local tournament is held, he enters some of the children, including Phiona and Brian. Phiona wins the tournament and she finds she has a degree of fame back in Katwe. Robert wants her to improve her game, but Harriet is suspicious of both chess and Robert’s assertion that Phiona can succeed as a future grandmaster. Initially reluctant to let Phiona follow her destiny, she eventually becomes supportive and proud of her youngest daughter. But Phiona’s increasing confidence leads to complacency and she loses another competition. What follows is a crisis of confidence that sees Phiona believe that the future within her grasp is no longer hers to achieve.

Queen of Katwe has several things going for it. One is the relative unfamiliarity of its location and its characters. Another is the quality of the performances. There’s also Nair’s attentive, confident direction. And there’s Sean Bobbitt’s rich, detailed, vibrant cinematography. All these elements come together and enhance the movie in ways that are entirely felicitous and sometimes unexpectedly profound. As Phiona’s story unfolds, the hardships and the setbacks she faces, while not exactly as grim-looking or -sounding as they probably were in real life, are given enough emphasis that when she and her family are evicted, the audience is likely to be concerned as to what they’ll do next, and where they will go. Their journey has become the viewer’s journey.

But Nair’s admirable direction, Nalwanga’s easy-going, likeable performance (allied to the more polished performances of Oyelowo and Nyong’o), the beautiful but desperate locations, and Bobbitt’s tremendous depictions of them, all of these wonderful components somehow lack the ability to offset the one major problem the movie has at its core: an over-reliance on predictability. Each development in the story is signposted with almost clockwork regularity, from Phiona’s first tournament loss, to Harriet’s eventual unconditional support for her daughter, to Robert’s decision in relation to a much longed for job opportunity. It’s as if the movie can’t help itself: it has to stick to formula, and it can’t be too imaginative.

What this leaves the viewer with is a further problem: how to adequately qualify their feelings about Phiona’s story, and how much of it is kept from being even more effective (and affecting) by this decision to keep things static. Whole scenes go by where their importance is tenuous to what follows, or indeed, to what’s gone before. It’s even more difficult to lay this weird displacement at the door of the screenwriter, William Wheeler. Wheeler has done a good job in making Phiona’s story both appealing and inspiring, but even when he strays too close to cliché and melodrama he’s still not strayed close enough for those two “bad guys” to have the kind of impact that slows a movie down or makes it seem like too much effort is required.

In real terms, Queen of Katwe is a story we’ve seen too many times before, and because of this, it’s told in a way that is, at best, a comfortable one for the viewer, but also a desultory one for the movie. Phiona’s family dynamic offers nothing new, and nor does the way in which her story unfolds, from the unexpected success on the lower rungs of the Angolan chess ladder to the here-again-gone-again antics of Night. Even the section where Phiona doubts herself and becomes (somewhat) depressed is approached with a kind of bland decisiveness that adds little or no drama to what’s unfolding. Instead of feeling undue and unnecessary pressure, all it takes is a pep talk from Robert and she’s okay again – and the viewer will know in advance that this will be all she will need to start playing again.

There are many more moments like that one, and the movie is so reliant on them, it’s as if the makers decided to include as much movie shorthand as possible during Queen of Katwe‘s filming, and then they imbedded the idea even further during the editing process. It doesn’t make the movie unwatchable, or a bad movie that could have been better; rather it’s a movie that won’t surprise anyone, and it’s a movie that hits each emotional highpoint with all the skill and precision of someone pushing a dart into a bullseye from a foot away. It’s movie making by rote, and sadly, it lessens the impact of Phiona’s story, and her achievements – which can’t be right, can it?

Rating: 7/10 – a good movie that rescues outright victory from the jaws of averageness too often for its own good, Queen of Katwe has a lot that works but only in the context of its lack of narrative ambition; an odd movie then, one that can be liked and disliked in equal measure, and which will leave many viewers wondering if it’s as good as they think it is.

Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a gifted neurosurgeon. He’s also an arrogant pain in the ass. His ego is on a par with Tony Stark’s, and he enjoys reminding people just how good he is. But one rainy evening, Strange’s car ends up in the river and his hands are so badly damaged that he’ll never be able to operate again. Angry and full of self-pity, Strange learns of a man who suffered a severed spine and was paralysed from the chest down, but who somehow managed to walk again. Strange tracks the man (Bratt) down, and is told of a monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he learned how to walk again. Strange travels there and meets The Ancient One (Swinton), a mystic who teaches him that their plane of existence is one of many, and that Strange must let go of everything he thinks he knows in order to achieve “enlightenment”.

Strange proves to be an eager and willing (if still slightly sceptical) pupil. He learns how to cast spells, how to travel from one place to another by visualising it in his mind and creating a portal through which to get there, and the existence of a former pupil, Master Kaecilius (Mikkelsen), who believes he can gain immortality by helping a creature from the Dark Dimension, Dormammu, take over the Earth. As Strange’s powers grow, Kaecilius begins attacking the three sanctums that help keep Dormammu and his like from entering our world. Aided by another Master, Baron Mordo (Ejiofor), Strange attempts to stop Kaecilius from bringing about the end of the world; he also receives help from an unlikely source: the Cloak of Levitation, which chooses Strange as its master.

But the London sanctum falls to Kaecilius’s onslaught, and he moves on to attack the sanctum in Hong Kong. Strange and Mordo arrive too late to avoid its destruction and the arrival of Dormammu in our world, but Strange has an idea that will counter-act all the death and destruction that has followed in Dormammu’s wake. If he fails, however, it will mean the end of all life on Earth…

Another Marvel movie, another origin story. But Stephen Strange has always been the odd character out in the Marvel Universe (cinematic or otherwise), a humbled physician redeemed by the power of magic and able to deal with the kind of villains that would give the likes of Iron Man and Captain America more than a run for their money. (Not that Strange is in any immediate danger here; Kaecilius isn’t exactly the most threatening villain Marvel has come up with, but he is good at running a lot.) With Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now under way, this gives Marvel the opportunity to add fresh characters to the roster, and take their ongoing series of movies in a new direction.

But is it any good? Well, predictably, the answer is Yes – for the most part. The standard Marvel formula is firmly in place, although there is less humour to be had this time round, and while the template is tweaked here and there, most viewers will be reassured that the House of Spidey hasn’t strayed too far from the formula that has made their movies so successful in the past. What is different, and markedly so, is the visual style adopted for the movie. Away from all the mind-bending, Inception-style graphics, Doctor Strange is both darker in tone and look. Even the hospital where Strange works isn’t as brightly lit as you might expect. But it’s not a gloomy movie over all, it’s just that for once, Marvel have realised that – scenes involving the Cloak of Levitation aside, and Strange’s “borrowing” habits in the library – this needs to be a serious piece above all.

Strange’s arrogance, and then his anger, in the beginning gives Cumberbatch the opportunity to play unlikeable with an unexpected fierceness. One scene in particular with McAdams as Strange’s one-time significant other, Christine Palmer, sees the actor deliver cruel lines of dialogue in a way that hasn’t been done before in a Marvel movie (he’s the hero and he’s being delberately objectionable). Even when he begins to accept that magic really does exist, he’s still an egotist, making snarky, caustic comments, but thanks to the script – by Derrickson, Jon Spaihts, and C. Robert Cargill – he’s also on a journey of self-discovery, and this comes across more and more effectively as the movie progresses.

With the main character in good hands (Cumberbatch inhabits the role with his customary panache, and even slips in an Alan Rickman tribute for those paying attention), it’s a shame that the rest are painted in such broad strokes. Baron Mordo, Strange’s arch-nemesis in the comics, is here very much a secondary character whose time will come in a later movie, while The Ancient One, despite being well-played by Swinton, is burdened with some astonishingly po-faced dialogue (“I spent so many years peering through time… looking for you.”) that you start to wonder if the half-smile Swinton adopts at times is in acknowledgment of how daft some of her lines truly are. As mentioned before, Mikkelsen’s master-turned-bad is not one of Marvel’s best villains, while McAdams is sidelined for much of the movie, though at least she’s not there as a damsel in need of being rescued.

The visuals are, unsurprisingly, stunning. The folding of cityscapes and the weird monstrosities glimpsed in the Dark Dimension are both equally impressive, but there is one sequence which stands head and shoulders above all the others: when Strange reverses the destruction of the Hong Kong sanctum. If anyone wants a clue as to why Marvel is more successful at the box office, and critically, than DC, then it’s this particular sequence that should be watched for one of the answers. Both DC and Marvel have been guilty of going down the destruction-porn road before, and audiences have begun to voice their dislike of these big, CGI-driven demolition extravaganzas. But here, we don’t see the destruction of the Hong Kong sanctum, just the aftermath, and then, in a complete stroke of genius, we see the destruction in reverse – and it’s so much more effective for being shown in this way. Clearly, someone at Marvel is listening.

Where Stephen Strange will fit into the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe remains to be seen (though a pre-end credits scene points him in one particular direction), and he won’t be back in another solo outing for some time, but as an introduction to a character with so much more to be explored, Doctor Strange has to be considered a success. Like most of Marvel’s output in the last eight years, though, it does have its fair share of pitfalls, and it does stumble at times in trying to simplify the more esoteric aspects of playing with magic, but overall this is an exciting, well-crafted, rewarding, and enjoyable first outing for the future Sorcerer Supreme.

Rating: 8/10 – superb spectacle can’t compensate for some poor decisions when it comes to the secondary characters, or the tangled logic surrounding Kaecilius’ need to bring Dormammu into this world, but these are minor gripes in a movie that takes a challenging character and does him justice from start to finish; by doing more than enough with the formula to make it more interesting, Doctor Strange becomes a movie that contradicts the claim that Marvel are just churning out the same movie over and over again.

Filmed in front of a live audience at the Murphy Theatre in Wilmington, Ohio, where the majority of people there have already indicated they will vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming US Presidential election on 8 November, Michael Moore in Trumpland is aptly named. (In an ironic twist on the value afforded free speech in America, Moore originally planned to perform his show at the Midland Theatre in Newark, Ohio, but the management nixed the idea.) Moore addresses the the relative virtues of both candidates, and asks the audience why it is that of the two, Hillary Clinton has been so stigmatised and attacked by her peers since her husband became President back in 1993.

In practice, Moore is reliably left-wing, but prefers to be thought of as a political activist, so this is an unsurprising move (and movie) from Moore. Releasing such a documentary with only weeks to go before the election, there’s little chance he’ll have any discernible effect on the way people vote come 8 November, but ever the optimist, Moore gives it his best shot. His audience, supposedly made up of confirmed Trump voters, seem more than willing to give Moore’s less than impassioned rhetoric a chance, and he regularly picks up laughs at both candidate’s expense (there’s even a moment where some audience members stand and applaud him). With the audience increasingly agreeing with him (especially the women), Moore basks in the rosy glow of the political commentator who appears deliberately partisan – at first – but who then reveals his own preference for President.

What Moore does that is clever is not to vilify Donald Trump outright. Instead he highlights some of Trump’s more extreme views by having his Mexican and Muslim audience members segregated at the back of the theatre. The Mexicans, and one Guatemalan woman, are kept behind a representation of the wall Trump wants to build along the US-Mexico border. The Muslims are kept watch over by a drone, which at least isn’t armed. It’s broad, uncomfortable humour that is maintained throughout the show, and by picking on these particular ethnic communities, Moore ends up being just as objectionable in his approach as Trump is with his. The wall and the drone remain in place (apparently) throughout; did Moore need to be this heavyhanded?

With the Mexicans and the Muslims sidelined because of Trump’s dislike for them, Moore sidesteps around Trump entirely and focuses on the decline of the white American male. He reveals his theory that men are becoming increasingly unnecessary in a world where there are more women than men and the birth rate amongst males is declining. Anxiety about the male role – “there are more women in law schools than men” – is at the heart of the typical Trump voter, posits Moore, and he makes a convincing argument, even if it does require a bit of a leap of understanding. It’s an extended sequence that has many women in the audience nodding their heads in acknowledgment, and several of the men looking stony-faced and unhappy at their perceived masculinity being lampooned in such a way.

He moves on to further highlight the demographic that is likely to vote for Trump based on promises he’s made: the poor, disadvantaged person who doesn’t have a job, maybe not even a home or a family, but who does have a vote, that one precious right that will mean they’ll vote for Trump because he’s promised to make things right for them, and he’s promised to go after the institutions that have contributed to so many people becoming dispossessed. As Moore puts it, “Trump’s election is going to be the biggest ‘Fuck you’ ever recorded in human history”. It’s a powerful moment, and the audience is deathly quiet, hanging on Moore’s every word, because he makes the one salient point that everyone seems to be overlooking: voting for Trump will be voting for the wrong reason, because Trump has no intention on following through on his promises.

Moore follows this up with a mock TV news report that shows what the US will be like once Trump is elected and moves into the White House. It’s a clumsy, awkward device, and it sits uneasily against the convincing, well thought out oratory of the previous minutes. It’s often the way with Moore: he makes a passionate plea for change or understanding or the use of common sense, and then he bludgeons everyone with the same point, almost as if he thinks he’s dealing with people who couldn’t possibly work it out for themselves (which is ironic, as that’s what he’s hoping for).

And then it’s Hillary’s turn, in the movie’s final section, and the one where Moore wears his heart, almost literally, on his sleeve. He likes Hillary, once called her a “hot, shit-kicking feminist babe”, and he bemoans the treatment she’s received over the years. This leads to Moore bringing in Pope Francis because he thinks they have a lot in common (and yes, this is a bit of a stretch), and he asks the audience to say nice things about her (even the Republicans and Trump voters). It’s a heartfelt but naïve approach, as Moore makes the most of Hillary’s virtues, and he explains why everyone has a chance to atone for the way she was treated in the past, and is still treated now.

By the end, Moore has made his position clear: vote for Hillary because it’s the right thing to do for the country, for America. The audience seems to agree with him because he gets a standing ovation. But throughout there have been shots of those audience members who clearly don’t agree with him, and who remain unmoved, even when he appears to be remarking on Trump’s good points. As a result it all smacks of too little, too late, and Moore himself lacks the anger and the disgust seen in previous documentaries. He’s impassioned at times, but this is less a rallying call than a plea to be nice to Hillary.

It’s hard to believe that Moore, despite his research and friendly approach, thinks that this will have any impact on the hearts and minds of American voters in a few weeks’ time. Liberals and democrats will vote for Hillary, right-wingers and Republicans (mostly) will vote for Trump. And there’ll be a sizeable portion of the electorate that won’t decide until the day itself. All this is normal, and all this is entirely predictable. It’s easy to see why Moore has released this movie, but as an intelligent, well-reasoned, though one-sided “debate” there are too many longeuers and references to issues away from the Presidential race to make Moore’s latest documentary as effective as he may have hoped. It’s good that he’s tried to “clear the air”, but in taking a less aggressive tone than usual, Moore has let both candidates off the hook for their past misdeeds, and in doing so, has made his show too much about him, and not enough about them.

Rating: 7/10 – with Moore displaying less outrage than on previous outings – only his disgust at the lack of healthcare reforms leading to 50,000 deaths a year really gets him angry – Michael Moore in TrumpLand ends up looking and sounding more tepid than vital; as a vehicle for raising political awareness it also falls short, and as an examination of the candidates’ campaigns it doesn’t even get started, but this is very much a love letter to Hillary above all else, a decision that both overwhelms and undermines the movie at the very same time.

NOTE: There’s no trailer available for Michael Moore in TrumpLand.

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And… we’re back! Here’s the second batch of movies that may or may not have us jumping for joy at having seen them in 2017. There’s a pleasing mix of genres, some movies have really great casts, and some that may go on to win copious awards. Whatever happens these are all – at this moment in time – movies that are capable of finding a place in our hearts and in our Top 10 lists for the year – or maybe not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

26 – Hidden Figures – The tagline is clever – “Meet the women you don’t know, behind the mission you do.” – and perfectly sums up the true story of the African-American women who were pivotal in ensuring that NASA were able to launch their space programme in the Sixties. It’s one of those inspiring true life tales that will no doubt pick up some Oscar buzz, but with a cast that includes Octavia Spencer, Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Costner and Mahershala Ali, this should be a fascinating look behind the scenes of an equally fascinating period in NASA’s history.

27 – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets – Luc Besson has wanted to make this adaptation of the French comic series by Pierre Cristin and Jean-Claude Mézières for a very long time. With Dane DeHaan in the title role, and the city in question providing a home to thousands of different species from across the universe, this could well be a riotous, visually spectacular movie replete with Besson’s quirky humour and operatic leanings. Like so many other movies in this list, there’s a great cast that includes Cara Delevingne, John Goodman, Clive Owen and Rihanna, and at €197 million, it’s also the most expensive French movie ever made.

28 – Despicable Me 3 – Steve Carell has stated that this will be his last feature outing as the not-quite-so-villainous Gru. If so, then it’ll be a shame as Carell’s vocal performance has been one of the series’ several high spots. Perhaps knowing this, the producers and writers have come up with a storyline that gives Carell twice as much to do as he plays both Gru and his long-lost brother Dru. Add to the mix the inclusion of Trey Parker as definitely villainous Balthazar Bratt, alongside the usual madcap humour of the Minions, and you have a second sequel that might just be better than expected.

29 – Tully – An original screenplay by Diablo Cody is brought to the screen by Jason Reitman for the third time – after Juno (2007) and Young Adult (2011) – and reteams them with Charlize Theron in a tale of a single mother with three kids who’s “gifted” a night nanny (the Tully of the title and played by Mackenzie Davis) by her brother. If Cody’s script is sharper than some of her more recent efforts then this could be a winning combination of comedy and drama that tugs at the heartstrings while also keeping audiences highly amused.

30 – Untitled Darren Aronofsky Project – This isn’t due for release until the very end of 2017, and Aronofsky is keeping details about his latest movie very close to his chest, but what we do know is that it features Michelle Pfeiffer, Ed Harris, Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence, and concerns a couple whose relationship is put to the test by some uninvited guests. With extensive special effects still to be completed, just how the couple’s relationship is tested is an intriguing question, but in Aronofsky’s hands this is unlikely to be a standard home invasion thriller.

31 – The Dark Tower – Stephen King’s sprawling eight-volume tale set in Mid-World concerns the pursuit of a mysterious Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) by an equally mysterious Gunslinger (Idris Elba). An adaptation has been on the cards in various forms since 2007, but this production has been somewhat rushed, which may not prove to be a good thing. Still it’s highly anticipated by fans, and the main casting shows a willingness on the producers’ part to add some weight to proceedings, but it will be the strength of the adaptation that will decide if this succeeds or fails.

32 – Dunkirk – The latest from Christopher Nolan recounts the evacuation of British, Canadian, French and Belgian troops from the beaches of Dunkerque in Northern France, and in the midst of an intense onslaught from surrounding German forces. This promises to be suitably epic, but whether Nolan has opted for Saving Private Ryan-style realism, or something a little less hard-hitting remains to be seen, but what will need to be seen is the movie in its IMAX 65mm format, which should make the movie look as spectacular as Nolan is probably intending.

33 – Baby Driver – Having departed from Ant-Man (2015), director Edgar Wright moved on to this comedy-action-thriller about a getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) who works for various bank robbers and finds himself in deep trouble when a heist goes badly wrong. Wright directs his own script so expect the humour to be spot on, and he’s assembled a great cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx and Lily James. However it all turns out, one thing is for sure: it’ll look and sound completely different from any other movie out there.

34 – A Cure for Wellness – If you’ve already seen the first trailer for Gore Verbinski’s first movie since The Lone Ranger (2013), then you’ll know that A Cure for Wellness is likely to be the most visually arresting movie of 2017. With a succession of stunning visuals allied to the mystery of a “wellness centre” located high in the Swiss Alps that is definitely not all that it seems, Verbinski has created a psychological mindbender of a movie that is likely to draw audiences in and then pull the rug out from under them – and not just the once.

35 – Murder on the Orient Express – It could be argued that we don’t exactly need another version of one of Agatha Christie’s most famous stories, but with Kenneth Branagh directing and starring as Hercule Poirot, and surprisingly, with Johnny Depp as the murder victim, there’s a good possibility that it will transcend the more “stage-bound” versions we’ve seen before. A mixed supporting cast that includes Judi Dench and Daisy Ridley should lend some gravitas to proceedings, all of which leaves one last question to be asked: will Branagh lean towards Peter Ustinov or David Suchet in his interpretation of the Belgian detective, or will he find his own approach to the sleuth?

36 – How to Talk to Girls at Parties – From the title you might be expecting another teen comedy about lustful boys chasing beautiful girls, but while Neil Gaiman’s original short story starts off very much like that, where it takes you from there is another matter entirely. John Cameron Mitchell adapts and directs which should ensure that this will be one of the more interesting movies of 2017, and he’s supported by the likes of Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning and Matt Lucas.

37 – Downsizing – If your life is getting you, well, down, what if you had the chance to be shrunk to a much smaller size and lead a better life; would you take the opportunity? That’s the question inherent in the latest from Alexander Payne, which sees Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig as the couple granted such an opportunity, only for her to back out at the last moment and leave Damon stranded as 2017’s version of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Payne has been working on this project for some time, so expect his trademark wry humour and heartfelt drama to shine through, and provide one of the more affecting movies of the coming year.

38 – Hostiles – A Western drama that sees Christian Bale’s army captain reluctantly escort a Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) and his family through dangerous territory, Hostiles could well be a dark, brooding affair touching on racist attitudes and the concept of self-determinism in amongst more familiar Western staples (which would be good), but if it isn’t then a good old-fashioned oater with lots of gunfights, Indian attacks and galloping about on horseback will do just fine.

39 – Andorra – Veteran director Fred Schepisi returns with an adaptation of the novel by Peter Cameron, about a man, Alexander Fox (played by Clive Owen), who leaves the US and settles in Andorra, only to find himself the prime suspect in a murder case. With Toni Collette and Gillian Anderson as the two women he finds himself involved with, it remains to be seen if Schepisi and Cameron (adapting his own novel) have retained the disturbing eeriness of the novel, and the country’s reimagining as one with a coastline and several other differences.

40 – John Wick: Chapter 2 – John Wick was both a pleasant surprise and something of a comeback for Keanu Reeves, and it may need to be again as Reeves has returned to making sub-standard DTV movies as the main part of his “day job”. With Reeves back again, along with directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch and writer Derek Kolstad, the action is relocated to Rome as Wick agrees to combat a former associate with plans to seize control of the assassins’ guild both belong to. Expect plenty of gunplay, gratuitous headshots, and bone-cracking fight scenes as Reeves does what he does best: play a focused, hell-bent killing machine.

41 – An Interview With God – Questions of faith and belief are challenged when a young journalist (Brenton Thwaites) finds himself interviewing a mysterious man who claims to be God (David Strathairn). Quite how much of this will be a two-hander remains to be seen but there’s something to be said for a drama where God may just be in the room, and can be asked anything at all. This puts much of the pressure on Ken Aguado’s script, but if he’s been careful and thought things through, then this could be a movie that gets people talking about faith for all the right reasons.

42 – Wonder – It’s Jacob Tremblay again, grabbing all the good pre-teen roles before it’s too late, and playing Auggie Pullman, a young boy with a facial deformity that has all sorts of effects on the children at the school he goes to. This adaptation of the novel by R.J. Palacio features Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as Auggie’s parents, and sounds like the kind of feelgood, triumph-over-adversity movie that awards are made for. But Palacio’s novel isn’t as easily transferable to the screen as some might think, so director Stephen Chbosky and co-screenwriters Steve Conrad and Jack Thorne have their work cut out for them.

43 – Submergence – Another literary adaptation, this time from the novel by J.M. Ledgard, this sees Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy as separated lovers who look back over their time together while both deal with different kinds of confinement: he in a windowless room at the mercy of jihadists, she in a submersible heading for the bottom of the Greenland Sea. A heavyweight romantic drama then, and the latest from Wim Wenders, this may not set the box office alight, but it has the potential to pick up awards by the bucket load.

44 – Logan Lucky – In Hollywood, even in the independent sector, retirement is usually just a word bandied about by writers, directors and actors when they feel they’ve done enough and can sit back and relax. Steven Soderbergh hasn’t exactly relaxed since Behind the Candelabra (2013), but this is his first feature since then, and it’s good to know he’s back. Telling the tale of two brothers (Channing Tatum, Adam Driver) who decide to pull off a robbery during a NASCAR race, this should be a clever comedy where nothing goes right for the brothers, and everything goes wrong.

45 – Annihilation – Following on from the success of Ex Machina (2015), writer/director Alex Garland continues with another sci-fi drama, this time an adaptation of the first novel in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. Telling the story of an expedition to the mysterious Area X, and what happened to several previous expeditions, the movie has attracted a great cast that includes Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaac and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and if Garland is on form, should be the year’s most thought-provoking sci-fi movie.

46 – Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Fashion Project – Details are scarce at this point in time, but what we do know is that Anderson’s latest movie is set in the London fashion world of the 1950’s and features Daniel Day-Lewis. Just the fact that Anderson and Day-Lewis are reuniting on this project is enough for now, but whatever the movie is about, it’s sure to be an intense, mesmerising drama that grabs the attention and doesn’t let go, and should include another (potentially) award-winning performance from Day-Lewis.

47 – The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara – After going all family-friendly with The BFG (2016), Steven Spielberg returns to the arena of historical drama with this true story about a young Jewish boy in Italy in 1858 who was secretly baptised and then abducted by the Papal States and trained to become a priest. A massive political and religious scandal in its day, Spielberg is working from a script by Tony Kushner, and reuniting for the fourth time in as many movies with Mark Rylance, who plays Pope Pius IX.

48 – Kingsman: The Golden Circle – An inevitable sequel for the surprise hit of 2014, this sees Matthew Vaughn returning to the director’s chair, while he and Jane Goldman collaborate on the script. Also returning are Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Sophie Cookson, and surprisingly, Colin Firth, whose character was killed off in the first movie… or was he? This time round the Kingsmen have to team up with their US rivals the Statesmen, when their headquarters is attacked. Expect lots of action, lots of comedy, and lots of sharply tailored suits, as well as a cameo from Elton John.

49 – Untitled Woody Allen Project – With his recent movies pointing towards a kind of late-career renaissance, Woody Allen keeps things moving with this drama set in 1950’s New York. With the likes of Kate Winslet, Juno Temple and Justin Timberlake on board, there’s little doubt that whatever Allen has come up with story-wise, the movie should be further proof that late-career Allen is more than a match for most everyone else.

50 – God Particle – A sci-fi movie involving a team of astronauts who find themselves completely alone aboard a space station when the Earth disappears, this has yet another great cast – Chris O’Dowd, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, and Ziyi Zhang amongst others – and if Internet gossip/predictions are to be believed, is the third movie in the unofficial Cloverfield trilogy. Whether that’s true or not, the idea of the Earth vanishing is potent enough, and the involvement of J.J. Abrams as producer should help bring audiences into cinemas. Let’s just hope the ending isn’t as awkwardly tacked on as the one in 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016).

In a small Louisiana town, young Mike Lassiter (Basso) is arrested for the murder of his father, Boone (Belushi). Having confessed to the crime, Mike says nothing more, even to his lawyer, Richard Ramsey (Reeves). Obviously this makes it hard for Ramsey to mount a defence, but as a friend of the family, and someone that Boone helped become a lawyer, he has inside knowledge about Boone that the jury won’t be aware of. With his client staying quiet, Ramsey’s only choice is to malign Boone’s reputation as a good father to Mike and loving husband to Loretta (Zellweger).

As the trial begins, Ramsey is joined by a junior lawyer, Janelle Brady (Mbatha-Raw). Together they begin to piece together a defence based on Boone’s abusive behaviour towards Mike and Loretta, while the prosecution – led by Leblanc (Klock) – reinforces the details surrounding the murder and Mike’s subsequent confession. The case seems hopeless until Ramsey calls Loretta to the witness stand, where she confirms just how abusive her husband could be. But as the trial continues, Janelle becomes suspicious about what might have really happened; she comes to believe that Mike is taking the fall for his mother. There’s no evidence to support this, however, and when Mike takes the stand and delivers a bombshell that no one could have prepared for, his testimony takes the trial in a direction that no one could have prepared for either.

With an introductory voice over by Reeves that sets the tone for the whole movie (he sounds bored and uninterested), The Whole Truth is one of those courtroom dramas where secrets are revealed every so often in an effort to keep the audience guessing as to what’s happened, or is happening, and which should add up to a last-minute revelation that will have said audience saying to themselves, “Wow! I never saw that coming!” Except, in reality, The Whole Truth opts for secrets that have no impact on the movie’s ending, and which are pretty much forgotten about once they’ve been revealed.

You don’t have to have seen hundreds of courtroom dramas to know that ninety-nine per cent of the time, if the defendant has confessed to the crime (but isn’t saying why they did it), then the chances of them actually being guilty are greatly reduced. And while it would be unfair to reveal if this is the case here, let’s just say that there is a formula here that’s being adhered to, and said formula shouldn’t spring too many surprises on anyone familiar with the genre. And thanks to screenwriter Nicholas Kazan (known here as Raphael Jackson, and perhaps wisely), the movie plods along from one unexciting revelation to another in a dour effort to appear exciting. It’s all so sloppily written that, from Ramsey’s “knowing” voice over to both his and Leblanc’s inability to cross-examine witnesses, The Whole Truth acts more as an educational movie about how not to make a courtroom drama than the effective thriller it wants to be.

Kazan’s script is one of the main offenders, but it’s not alone in handicapping the movie at every turn. Since coming to people’s attention with her well-received debut, Frozen River (2008), director Courtney Hunt has only worked on five TV episodes before taking on the challenge of molding this movie into something that isn’t the cinematic definition of “generic”. That she never gets to grips with the material, and films everything in a bland, TV-movie-of-the-week style, is evident throughout, and the look of the movie – all washed-out and looking as if bright colours were a no-no – further undermines any attempts the movie might make to stand out from the crowd. It’s as if cinematographer Jules O’Loughlin was instructed not to make the movie look attractive.

And then, somewhat inevitably, there’s the cast. Keanu Reeves has the kind of career that fluctuates between godawful and cautiously optimistic with almost absurd regularity. John Wick (2014) was a reminder that when he’s asked to play taciturn and given minimal dialogue, he’s playing to his strengths as an actor. But then he also appears in movies such as Man of Tai Chi (2013 – and which he directed), and Knock Knock (2015), and you’re reminded that he’s only good with certain material. Here he struggles as usual with both his character and his character’s dialogue, with his occasional voice overs further underscoring how often he looks and sounds removed from the movies he makes. He makes for an unconvincing trial lawyer as well, and The Whole Truth teeters on the edge of disaster every time Ramsey gets up to question a witness.

Making her return to acting after a six-year hiatus, Renée Zellweger is, as many people have already pointed out, hard to recognise as Loretta. Even when she speaks you could still be forgiven for thinking she’s someone else, and this proves to be something of a distraction whenever she’s on screen. Why she picked this movie to make her comeback is a mystery that’s more intriguing than the central mystery around who killed Boone, and though she has second billing, Loretta is more of a supporting role than a lead. She’s not asked to do too much, and when Loretta takes the stand, Zellweger treats us to a glimpse of what she’s capable of, but otherwise it’s a performance that dozens of other actresses could have given. Mbatha-Raw is underused as well, her character the inexperienced, somewhat naïve ingenue who gets her one chance to shine in court before being relegated back to the sidelines.

With the performances unable to lift the movie out of its self-imposed narrative doldrums, and Hunt apparently unable to make much out of the material, The Whole Truth proves to be hugely disappointing, and resoundingly flat. There’s no impetus, no energy in the courtroom scenes, and by the end it’s difficult to care who did what, why or how. Courtroom dramas succeed or fail on the quality of the secrets that are revealed during a trial, and the odds against the defence lawyer winning, but here there’s so much apathy on display that any impact is curtailed before any such secrets are fully revealed. This may be a courtroom drama per se, but someone really should have pointed out that the drama was, in legal terms, misrepresented.

Rating: 4/10 – originally set to star Daniel Craig as Ramsey, The Whole Truth is a movie that wouldn’t have turned out any better even if he hadn’t dropped out just days before production was due to begin; clumsy and dull, the movie is like drudge work for the eyes and ears, and never once feels like it’s going to step up a gear and become even slightly interesting.

Toni (Hightower) is an eleven year old who hangs out with her older brother Jermaine (Minor) at their local gym where he’s training to be a boxer. She uses the time and opportunity to work out, and occasionally, spars with Jermaine and his friend, Donté (Grant Jr). It’s a situation she’s more than happy with, but when she becomes aware of the dance class that takes place elsewhere in the building, Toni becomes intrigued by the sense of camaraderie and commitment the girls in the group exhibit.

Eventually she joins the group. Some of the older girls are rehearsing for an upcoming competition after achieving success in another. As Toni begins to make friends and learn the routines, one of the older girls has a fit. Though unexpected, the group carries on rehearsing until the same thing happens to another of the older girls. Suspicion for the fits falls on the water supply to the building, but even though everyone is advised to drink bottled water, the fits continue to affect several of the girls, including some of the younger ones. But is there a simple solution to what’s happening, or is it a form of hysteria that has no obvious source?

Anna Rose Holmer’s debut feature is a low-key, minimalist drama that unfolds slowly and with great deliberation. It maintains a steady, thoughtful pace throughout, and uses an observational approach that’s almost documentary-like in style (and which should be unsurprising given Holmer’s background in documentaries, and where she’s known as Anna Farrell). The story is kept very simple, as Toni’s attempts to fit in are offset by the rising tide of paranoia that affects the dance group, even after the mains water is ruled out as a cause for the fits. Holmer is clever enough not to provide any definitive answers for the seizures, and the movie retains its credibility even as the mystery deepens.

But while Holmer’s approach to her own material is consistently and carefully measured, it’s the material itself that doesn’t reward the viewer quite as effectively. Toni’s switch from boxing to dancing comes about thanks to her curiosity about the dance group, and a need to fit in amongst children of her own age and gender. But Toni makes few efforts to forge any friendships, and she remains a passive observer of each successive seizure and development. This makes it difficult to invest in the movie on a personal level, and while emotions run high on screen, the distancing effect adopted by Holmer makes Toni’s experiences more of an intellectual exercise than a moving one.

Rating: 7/10 – bolstered by a terrific performance by Hightower, The Fits is nevertheless a movie that keeps its distance from the viewer and makes it difficult to enjoy on a conventional level; strong on ideas, but with Holmer focused more on how the movie is assembled, it’s a feature to be admired for its rigorous approach rather than how affecting it is.

What if you could just up and walk away from the life you were living, and go and be somebody else, assume a different identity and create a history for yourself to go with that identity? And what if you could do that over and over, changing your name and your looks every so often, and living a new life each time? What would be the rewards of doing such a thing? What would be the downside? And even if you could, why would you do it in the first place?

This is what Rachel Weisz’s character, Jenny, does. The movie opens by introducing us to some of the identities she’s adopted in the fifteen years since she left her home and family and friends behind and became someone else. She’s lived in Australia, been a magician’s assistant in China, and an ER nurse somewhere in the US. Currently she’s a biologist who’s part of a team that have discovered a previously unknown species of frog in Tasmania. Her name is Alice Manning, and her work has brought her back to New York, where she comes from originally. Looking to reconnect with her past she tracks down Tom (Shannon), a land reform advocate on a mission to have environmental protection clauses inserted into the legislature. As we learn later on, Tom is Jenny’s only link to her past since the death of her father, and despite the time and distance she’s put between her first life and her current one, she still has a need to affirm its existence.

Adopting a softly, slowly approach, Alice gets to know Tom’s work partner, Clyde (Chernus). She dazzles him, and when it comes time for Tom’s birthday, Clyde invites her along to the birthday party as his plus one. Once there, Tom becomes suspicious that Alice isn’t Alice, but the Jenny he remembers. As the party continues, Alice admits to changing her identity when she wants to. Some of the guests are impressed, others think it’s a horrible idea because of the lies involved. Tom remains bemused, certain and yet uncertain that Alice is Jenny. He tries to tackle her about it, but her answers offer confirmation and non-confirmation at the same time. It’s only when they all go to a club to spend the rest of the evening dancing that Tom becomes convinced that it’s Jenny and not Alice. When she leaves, in a hurry to get away suddenly, he follows her and gets her to admit to her deception.

What follows can best be described as a cinematic chamber piece, as Alice and Tom walk the streets debating the rights and wrongs of Jenny’s “lifestyle”, encounter Kathy Bates’ Nina who is out walking her dog, and who subsequently has a fall, and her husband Roger (Glover) when they help her back to her apartment. Further discussion around why Jenny left follows, and eventually, Tom tells her he wants to see how she moves on to the next identity. Having experienced some form of emotional epiphany, Tom returns home to his wife, Remina (Ghanizada)… and on the cusp of a revelation, the movie ends.

Fans of very slow-paced dramas will enjoy the last half an hour of Complete Unknown, as the script – by director Marston and Julian Sheppard – winds down in terms of pace, interest, and credibility. It’s here that Marston sheds any notion that he knows where the movie is going, and the viewer is left wondering if there has been any point to the movie at all. Tom and Alice/Jenny’s relationship is the key focus by this time, but it’s not as dramatic as it should be, and Marston is unable to create any drama or sense of heightened feelings as the emotionally distant duo fret over each other’s pain, but only for a short period before they move on. For both there are meant to be “lessons learned”, but it’s hard to tell if any “lessons” have been doled out. Jenny can’t explain with any precision why she does what she does, and Tom is so tightly wound-up at times that it’s hard to work out if he’s mad at Jenny for disappearing all those years ago, or because his marriage is about to go through a potentially very rough patch.

Throughout the movie, Marston fails to explain things in a way that isn’t confusing to the viewer, or problematical for the characters. Jenny/Alice’s motivation for leaving behind her original life remains spurious at worst, and unsatisfactory at best. And more importantly, the script never sells the viewer on the reasons for Jenny/Alice wanting to return to her roots, undermining her previous determination to avoid any confrontation from her past. Similarly, Tom’s steely-eyed persistence in wanting to know why Jenny left so abruptly, is shown as being immediate and close to the surface, the dynamic of which seems absurd given the passage of time. Are we really meant to believe that he hasn’t moved on after fifteen years? And if we are, then why doesn’t the script explain why?

It’s these dramatic exclusions that hurt the movie most, draining it of the few mystery elements it’s set up at the beginning. The result is a dry, mannered, unconvincing movie that fails to provide depth for its characters to build on, and lacks the necessary desire to fill in the multitude of gaps in the narrative. Marston doesn’t really know where his movie is going to, and he’s curiously unable to make sense of Jenny’s need for reinvention, or the mechanics of it (toward the end, Tom challenges Jenny over her ability to change her identity, and tells her he wants to see how she does it; she takes him to her apartment and packs a bag – and that’s it).

Against this, Weisz provides a thankfully intuitive performance that goes a long way toward helping the viewer engage with the material, but even she can only do so much. Shannon is largely passive throughout, his face a blank canvas that gives little away, and his default manner one of bewilderment. In their scenes together there’s precious little spark to help explain the feelings they had for each other, and why it’s so important for Jenny to see Tom again, and the distance between them is another aspect of the production that Marston is unable to do anything about.

Rating: 4/10 – questions of identity are left hanging in Complete Unknown, and what could have been an absorbing, insightful examination of one woman’s need to be different versions of herself, is abandoned in favour of a trite, vaguely rewarding trawl through poorly constructed dialogues that leave everything open for interpretation; a slowburn movie that treats its central character like a cypher (because it can’t do anything else with her), Marston’s micro-drama is unlikely to generate the interest it needs in order to find an audience willing to forgive its indolence.

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This week the question is a simple one, and is based on a simple premise. How do some actors and actresses manage to find regular employment in movies when they clearly can’t act their way out of a paper bag? (That’s not this week’s question, that’s just part of the preamble.) These are actors and actresses that are well-known, have appeared in many well-known movies, but have yet to give a decent performance in any of them (well, maybe once, to be fair). And yet they keep getting hired… and hired… Is it because they have great agents who are very good at getting them parts time after disappointing time? (That’s still not the question.) Or are they just very, very, lucky – or always available? (Wait for it…) So, in the light of all this, this week’s Question of the Week is:

Just how do Liam Hemsworth and Chloë Grace Moretz manage to keep on working?

Sports mascots from around the globe gather to take part in the 8th World Mascot Association Championships, though strangely, we only get to meet competitors from the US, Canada, and the UK. There’s Mike and Mindy (Woods, Baker), teachers at Rhea Perlman Middle School; Cindi Babineaux (Posey), a former dance student; Owen Golly (pronounced “jolly”) Jr (Bennett), a third generation mascot; Tommy ‘Zook’ Zucarello (O’Dowd), a hockey mascot with a penchant for drugs and sexual misconduct; and Phil Mayhew (Moynihan), a real estate appraisor.

We meet them in the days leading up to the Championship, watch them deal with various problems related to being a mascot, and the pressures of being in such a low-profile tournament. Alongside them we get to meet the judges (Lynch, Lake, Begley Jr), the Championship organiser (Hitchcock), and a handful of interested parties, including Owen’s father (Piddock), Cindi’s sister, Laci (Yeagley), and Phil’s coach (Willard). As the big day approaches, each of the contestants faces a crisis that could mean the difference between winning and losing.

If that brief synopsis of Mascots seems a little tired, and a little uninspired, then that’s because it’s an adequate representation of the movie itself. This is the fifth movie of its type from Guest, and it has the look and feel of an idea that has been put aside in the past because it just doesn’t match up to the quality of its predecessors. There’s the same set up as before, with brief character introductions giving way to even briefer journeys to the main venue, followed by a series of obstacles that the contestants need to overcome before the big day. Along the way there are the usual monologues or discussions to camera that reveal character flaws or embarrassing histories, wedded to documentary style footage that shows the same characters behaving badly or with few social skills.

As a result, the situations and the jokes feel forced and the humour dries up very quickly in any given scene. And many of those same scenes are superfluous and dull, failing to advance the basic storyline, and feeling more extraneous than relevant. That said, the cast do the best they can, but some are more fortunate than others, with Bennett and Moynihan coming off best, while the likes of Willard, Lynch and Hitchcock play the same old characters they always play. Guest, though, actually does play a character he’s played before: Corky St Clair from Waiting for Guffman (1996). It all adds up to a fitfully amusing movie that never manages to gather any momentum, and remains unrewarding except for a couple of the mascot performances.

Rating: 5/10 – a bit of a struggle to get through, Mascots is another Netflix movie that promises more than it can deliver; time for Guest et al to hang up the mockumentary approach and find a new way to lampoon the people whose niche pursuits have provided us with so much hilarity in the past.

Do you like your cops as corrupt as the criminals they arrest/steal from? Do you like to see cops misuse their position and betray your trust in them at every turn? And do you like them to have so little regard for your (or anyone else’s) dignity or safety that they’d hit a mime with their car just to see if he yells in pain? Well, if you only answered yes to that last question, then War on Everyone is the movie for you. It’s a buddy cop movie where the cops in question, Detectives Bob Bolaño (Peña) and Terry Monroe (Skarsgård), will do everything they possibly can to screw over everyone they meet, be it their long-suffering boss, Lt. Stanton (Reiser), or one of their stoolpigeons, Reggie (Barrett), or just about anyone operating on the wrong side of the law (like them).

When news reaches them that a big heist is being planned, naturally Bob and Terry want to know all about it so they can grab the money once the robbers have done all the hard work. But the man planning the heist is a shadowy figure they’ve not encountered before, and the details are equally shadowy; all they have are the men who’ll be involved but not the location or where the money is to be taken. With Reggie managing to get himself the getaway driver’s job, Bob and Terry think they’ve got it all worked out: follow Reggie, grab the cash at the earliest opportunity, and head off to somewhere foreign with no extradition arrangement with the US. But of course, nothing goes to plan, and Bob and Terry find themselves up against a British aristocrat called “Lord” James Mangan (James), the mastermind behind the heist, and someone who doesn’t take kindly to their efforts to hijack the robbery and take most of the money.

After the relatively sombre and restrained The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014), writer/director John Michael McDonagh has decided to cut loose – and quite a bit – with this tale of two ultra-corrupt cops that’s set in New Mexico, is bolstered by the inclusion of Glen Campbell on the soundtrack, and which has a very gritty Seventies vibe to it. War on Everyone is also extremely funny in places, as you’d expect from McDonagh, and there are a plethora of laugh-out-loud moments to keep the audience happy and the script from seeming too formulaic. McDonagh is great at creating a world for his dysfunctional characters to inhabit, and the bright, airy spaces of New Mexico are used to good effect to create a surprisingly natural background for the absurdities that unfold in the foreground.

The plot, such as it is, is acceptable without pushing any boundaries or bringing anything new to the table, and McDonagh is keen to highlight the fact that he knows this, and that the audience should just go along with it. It’s Bob and Terry who are the movie’s real focus, even though their relationship – built as ever on mutual trust and respect while everyone else (bar Bob’s family) is fair game – is one we’re meant to enjoy for its verbal jousting and the pair’s unspoken dependence on each other. Only when it seems that Bob has run out of luck do we see how much Terry depends on him as both a partner and a friend. But in keeping with the characters’ macho exteriors, it’s a necessarily brief glance – and then back to the action.

With McDonagh having established the bond that unites these two latter-day Robin Hoods (only difference: they don’t give to the poor), he adds subplots and secondary characters to flesh out the drama, but in the process and with the exception of Landry Jones’ twitchy portrayal of Mangan’s right hand man, Birdwell, never quite manages to make them as memorable as they need to be. Despite sending Mangan (literally) on an acid trip that’s designed more to show off some fancy camera moves and elaborate staging than to look into the mind of the character, the villain is essentially colourless and in the end, easily dealt with. Likewise, Terry’s love interest, Jackie (Thompson), who he places under his own personal protection and who he promptly falls in love with. Jackie’s a sweet enough character, and as a counterpoint to all the cynicism on display elsewhere she fits the bill, but McDonagh doesn’t develop her in any way, and she remains a frustrating caricature: the girl who needs to be rescued.

As the two felons with badges, Peña and Skarsgård make a great team. Peña is the erudite, well-read partner who can quote from the Greek classics, and who realises that they can’t keep doing what they’re doing indefinitely (it doesn’t help that he looks a little like a Latino version of the British movie critic Mark Kermode). Skarsgård brings the muscle, folding in on himself a lot of the time and accentuating his forehead, as if he’s about to use it as a battering ram. He’s the more dangerous of the two, unpredictable, and Skarsgård projects just the right amount of bottled-up menace that the role requires. Together the two stars are a joy to watch, and McDonagh ensures that their camaraderie is entirely believable, even when he takes them out of their New Mexico comfort zone and sends them off to Iceland to track down an absconded Reggie.

Making his first feature away from Ireland, McDonagh shows a confidence in his decision that isn’t supported by the way he handles the material, and on this occasion McDonagh the director doesn’t know quite what to do to combat the problems inherent in McDonagh the writer’s screenplay. But the movie is an enjoyable one for the most part, provided the viewer keeps their expectations to a minimum; then they might be pleasantly surprised by Bob and Terry’s antics, and also more invested in how things turn out. One area where the movie can’t be faulted is in its cinematography, courtesy of the very talented Bobby Bukowski, whose previous movies include Rosewater (2014) and The Iceman (2012). Thanks to his efforts, War on Everyone is often beautiful to look at, and he keeps the camera moving in ways that are often very inventive – and often without the viewer realising it.

Rating: 7/10 – at times a raucous, freewheeling movie with plenty of buzz about it, War on Everyone can’t sustain it’s initial set up for very long, and McDonagh’s script loses its freshness around the halfway mark; good performances from Peña and Skarsgård help things immeasurably, but this has to go down as a missed opportunity from McDonagh, but not so bad that his next movie won’t be as highly anticipated as this one was.

This year’s BFI London Film Festival ended yesterday after providing a total of 380 features and short movies from 74 countries for people to see over twelve days. It was a rich and varied programme, with something for everyone, and its diversity was, as ever, its main strength. Here are the movies that I saw during the Festival – not as many as I would have liked, and certainly not as many as I’ve seen in previous years, but then, when you work for the BFI and part of your job is to be there “on the night” then you have to accept that some opportunities aren’t going to come your way. That said, the bulk of the movies that I wanted to see but which I missed, I’ll catch up with at a later date, but in the meantime, these still made an impact.

The Bacchus Lady (2016) / D: E J-yong / 110m

Cast: Youn Yuh-jung, Chon Moo-song, Yoon Kye-sang, An A-zu

Rating: 8/10 – growing old in South Korea never looked so unappealing as it does here, with Yuh-jung’s elderly prostitute struggling to make ends meet while trying to look after a young boy whose mother has been arrested – and while she also finds herself acting as an angel of mercy to some of her clients; J-yong’s look at what it’s like to be old in modern day South Korea is a sobering reflection on the change of attitude toward the elderly by the current, younger generation, and his unsentimental (and yet curiously unjudgmental) approach makes for sometimes uncomfortable viewing, but it does feature an outstanding performance from Yuh-jung, and some very dark humour indeed.

Rating: 9/10 – a young German woman (Beer) mourns the death of her fiancé during World War I, but finds her grief is shared by a young Frenchman (Niney) who comes to place flowers on his grave – and in doing so, begins a relationship with her that has unforeseen consequences for both of them; Ozon’s latest, shot for the most part in glorious black and white, is a layered, deceptively simple examination of grief and personal need set against a backdrop of lingering racial hostility that features a standout performance from Beer, and which sees Ozon making possibly his finest movie to date, an evocative, richly detailed movie that is both moving and emotionally astute.

Rating: 7/10 – a murder scene reveals the body of a young woman buried in the cellar – but how long has she been there, what was the cause of death, and will coroners Tommy Tilden (Cox) and his son, Austin (Hirsch) find the answers?; strong on atmosphere and performances, and shot through with a grim sense of foreboding, Øvredal’s follow up to Troll Hunter (2010) is nevertheless let down by a script that can’t maintain the quality of its early scenes, and which ends up trying to apply further tension at the expense of both the characters and the already fractured narrative, leaving the viewer with the feeling that more time needed to have been spent on suspending disbelief rather than encouraging it.

Rating: 7/10 – the question is a simple one: is it okay to make jokes about the Holocaust, but the answer proves to be more elusive than you might expect as Pearlstein invites several famous Jewish comedians to comment and give their views, while filtering their responses through the reactions and experience of Renee Firestone, herself a Holocaust survivor; while Pearlstein’s liberal approach to her brief (Lenny Bruce and 9/11 are also touched on) means a wide range of (sometimes contradictory) feedback, there’s no mistaking the quality of the material on offer in terms of Holocaust related jokes and observations, but it’s the time we spend with Renee that offers the most reward, an ordinary woman who survived an extraordinary experience, and who has the best perspective of everyone.

Rating: 8/10 – political and personal relationships count for nothing in newly independent Ireland in 1922, as headstrong Gypo Nolan (Hanson) betrays his friend, Francis McPhillip (Harbord), thanks to jealousy and his own insecurities; made as both a silent and a talkie, this is by far the more impressive version, with Robison’s claustrophobic direction accompanied by compelling camerawork from Werner Brandes and Theodor Sparkuhl, their striking approach to the material, along with spirited performances from de Putti and Hanson, making this a must-see for fans of late Twenties silent cinema, and a reminder that edge-of-the-seat drama is not restricted to movies made with dialogue and a soundtrack.

Rating: 7/10 – audio bloggers Morgan (Jungermann) and Jean (Carr) produce shows about female serial killers and were once an item, which makes things unexpectedly awkward when Morgan begins a relationship with Simone (Vand), who may or may not be the daughter of a female serial killer, or even a serial killer herself; Jungermann’s feature debut features a mix of styles and never really settles for one in particular, making this a movie that is part comedy, part thriller, part relationship drama, and part indie navel-gazer, while attempting to be bittersweet and compelling at the same time, an objective which, despite some good performances and some very good individual scenes, it never quite achieves to either its satisfaction or the viewer’s.

Rating: 7/10 – a look at the life and career of legendary Japanese actor Toshirô Mifune, as discussed by some of his contemporaries, his eldest son Shirô, and those that admired him; it’s an odd biography that doesn’t introduce its central character until nearly twenty minutes in, but such is the case with Mifune: The Last Samurai, as the viewer is treated to an overview of Samurai culture and Japan’s involvement in World War II before we begin to learn anything of value about the star of such classics as Rashomon (1950) and Yojimbo (1961), but when we do, Mifune’s strength of character and commitment to his acting roles reveals a man who was self-possessed to an incredible degree and who used that intense self-possession to provide us with a gallery of unforgettable performances.

Rating: 7/10 – when the Countess Elnora Natatorini (Negri) discovers her beau is seeing another woman she decides there’s only one thing for it: to travel to the “other side of the world”, namely Maple Valley, Iowa, where she has relatives by marriage, but once there she finds herself at odds with the prudish locals, especially when they learn she has a tattoo; a charming, almost feather-light production featuring an equally charming performance by Negri, A Woman of the World is a funny, sweet, undemanding confection of a movie that fans of silent cinema will warm to straight away, and which offers – out of the blue – a dramatic confrontation with a bullwhip which has to be seen to be believed for its physical and emotional ferocity.

Rating: 5/10 – ex-cons Troy (Cage), Mad Dog (Dafoe), and Diesel (Cook) are all two-strike losers looking to luck on to that one big pay day that will see them able to get out from under, but when they’re tasked with the kidnapping of a baby (in order to get the baby’s father to cough up money he owes a big-time gangster), everything goes wrong, and the trio find themselves running out of time to put things right; based on a novel by Edward Bunker, nihilism is the order of the day as Schrader serves up a movie that is unapologetically unlikeable, violently crass and crassly violent, lacking in dramatic focus, but redeemed somewhat by good performances by Cage and Dafoe, and a fevered approach to the cinematography that adequately replicates the moral capriciousness of its central trio (Schrader introduced the movie, and made mention of some of the classic movies he’d contributed to; then he said this wasn’t one of them – how right he was).

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And so we say au revoir to the 60th BFI London Film Festival 2016. The Closing Night gala screening was Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire, an action-packed comedy thriller set in a warehouse that sees two rival gangs trying to kill each other in an orgy of gunfire. The movie features Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley and Cillian Murphy, and its simple, direct approach – a bit of a welcome tonic after the tonal and narrative discrepancies that undermined High-Rise (2015) – has already garnered critical approval following its showing at the Toronto International Film Festival. As with the Opening Night galas, and since 1967 when the Closing Night became a “thing”, the programmers at the BFI have managed to secure some amazing, and varied, movies to occupy their Closing Night slot. Here are just a dozen of those movies.

Big Ronnie (St. Michaels), an ex-disco entrepreneur back in the Seventies, lives with his middle-aged son, Big Brayden (Elobar). When they’re not bickering, they run a tour guide business where they show unsuspecting tourists various sites “supposedly” connected to the heyday of disco. Big Ronnie likes his food cooked in a lot of oil and grease, the oilier and greasier the better, because when he’s not chiding Big Brayden, or ripping off tourists, he’s the Greasy Strangler, a maniacal killer who has claimed several victims so far and whom the police are no nearer catching than when he started.

Big Ronnie and Big Brayden’s relationship is shaken up by the appearance of Janet (De Razzo). Much to Big Ronnie’s displeasure, Janet takes a shine to Big Brayden, and they begin dating. This makes Big Ronnie so angry that he claims more victims, including friends such as Oinker (Walters). Big Brayden begins to have his suspicions about the Greasy Strangler’s identity, and when Big Ronnie behaves “all smooth” and persuades Janet to be his girlfriend, the stage is set for a showdown between father and son, killer and self-appointed vigilante, that will (inevitably) change their lives forever – but not necessarily in a way that either could have foreseen.

Already being hailed as a cult favourite, and having a level of critical approval that most low-budget, indie horrors would themselves kill for, The Greasy Strangler is a funny, awful, side-splitting, appalling, blackly comic, dreadful movie that works very well in stretches but makes too much use of verbal and visual repetition to pad out its running time. Depending on your tolerance, conversations involving the phrase “bullshit artist” may prove to be annoying, as might seeing over and over again, Big Ronnie getting cleaned up in a car wash after a bout of killing as the Greasy Strangler. Co-writer/director Jim Hosking appears to be striving for some kind of banality here, a further example of the monotonous lives that Big Ronnie and Big Brayden live – they do little beyond the tours, eating together, and arguing – but it’s a device that soon wears out its welcome.

Alternatively, the movie is on firmer ground when it’s trying to be shocking and distasteful. Prosthetic penises and exploding eyeballs are the order of the day, and there’s a pleasing, sleazy Eighties vibe to it all (the special effects reflect the quality of the period). It’s also very funny in a “you shouldn’t really be laughing” kind of way, particularly in the ongoing war of attrition that makes for the relationship between Big Ronnie and Big Brayden; dysfunctional doesn’t even cover it. St. Michaels and Elobar are both excellent, pushing a number of physical and emotional boundaries in the script’s pursuit of ever more alienating content. Love ’em or want to get as far away from ’em as possible, Big Ronnie and Big Brayden are characters you won’t forget in a hurry, and the movie is on very firm ground when they’re on screen together.

Rating: 7/10 – a breath of welcome bad air in a year where few movies have dared to be different, The Greasy Strangler doesn’t always overcome its low-budget origins, but it does have a number of moments where the viewer will be thinking “No way“; bold in both tone and content, the movie never tries to be likeable or elicit sympathy for its lead characters, meaning it is what it is, and it’s entirely unapologetic about everything it depicts, which in this genre, is exactly what it should be doing.

The most prominent movie maker to come out of Poland, Andrzej Wajda was also a director with a strong European sensibility, even as he was chronicling the turbulent political times he lived in. His father was killed in the Katyn Massacre in 1940 (an event Wajda would revisit in 2007), but he survived along with his mother and brother. After the war he went to Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts, and then in the early Fifties the Łódź Film School, where he was an apprentice to the director Aleksander Ford. He made his first movie, A Generation in 1955; it was also the first in a trilogy of movies that would take an anti-war stance then unpopular in Poland itself, which was still under Soviet rule.

He worked in the theatre as well, but focused more and more on movie making. His work gained international recognition – Kanal (1956) shared the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1957 with Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal – and he was able to explore more of the topics that interested him, as in Lotna (1959), a tribute to the Polish Cavalry that his father had been a part of. Throughout the Sixties he made movies that were more and more allegorical and symbolic, and his reputation increased accordingly. He was most successful in the Seventies, making a string of films that cemented his position as the foremost Polish movie maker of his generation.

In the Eighties he continued to make movies but more and more of his time was taken up with supporting Lech Wałęsa’s Solidarity movement. This involvement angered the Polish government to such an extent that it forced the closure of Wajda’s production company. Undeterred, Wajda continued to make the movies he wanted to make, and his career continued to go from strength to strength. In 1990 he was honoured by the European Film Awards with a Lifetime Achievement award (only the third director to have the honour, after Fellini and Bergman). Wajda won numerous other awards during his lifetime, and he was a tireless innovator who held a light up to the social and political upheavals and troubles that were occuring in his beloved Poland. His movies had a rigid formalism to them that was always undermined (and deliberately so) by Wajda’s own innate sympathy for humanity. He was a passionate, discerning movie maker who could make audiences laugh, cry, be angry or sad, but never bored or uninvolved.

Robert Zemeckis has been making movies for nearly forty years. He’s been at the forefront of a variety of technical firsts, from motion capture (on The Polar Express) to digital effects (Lieutenant Dan’s missing legs in Forrest Gump), but despite all this he’s still an actors’ director at heart, and he loves to tell a story. Even when his aim is to tell a serious story, such as in The Walk (2015), he still wants to entertain the audience, and to take them on a journey to a place they’ve never seen or experienced before. Along the way he’s made a handful of movies that are bona fide modern classics, and made a little town called Hill Valley into a place we’d all like to visit. For providing us with so many wonderful movie memories, here’s how we’ve repaid him at the international box office.

10 – Beowulf (2007) – $196,393,745

The middle picture in Zemeckis’ motion capture trilogy, Beowulf sees him trying to stretch the boundaries of both motion capture and 3D but with predictably mixed results. While his use of 3D is exemplary, the problems that prevented The Polar Express from being completely effective – the dullness of the eyes, the subtleties of lip movement – remain to make for some awkward moments. Nevertheless, the final showdown with the dragon is still one of the best fantasy sequences yet committed to screen (in any format), and Angelina Jolie is a great choice for Grendel’s mother.

9 – Back to the Future Part III (1990) – $244,527,583

The last in the trilogy was always going to divide audiences. Some were always going to love it for its Western setting, others were going to hate it for exactly the same reason. Whatever your leaning, what is unassailable is the movie’s appreciation for the genre, and the very satisfactory way in which Zemeckis and co-writer Bob Gale have wound up the overall story. Few trilogy closers are this triumphal, and fewer still are as emotionally astute – only Toy Story 3 (2010) springs to mind – but when you’re having this much fun saying goodbye, it seems right and proper to such a degree that you never think about just how much you’re going to miss the characters when it’s done.

8 – What Lies Beneath (2000) – $291,420,351

Zemeckis tries his hand at a psycho-drama with supernatural overtones, ropes in Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford as the leads, and manages to pull off a number of effective sequences, but ultimately, What Lies Beneath is a movie that doesn’t quite work in the way that Zemeckis and screenwriter Clark Gregg want it to. The tone of the movie fluctuates too often, leaving viewers uncertain if they’re watching a bloodless horror, a taut thriller, or a domestic drama gone awry. There are elements of all three on display, but it’s when they’re all combined in the same scene that things go badly wrong. Still, the scene where Pfeiffer is paralysed in the bathtub is unbearably tense, and Zemeckis handles it with accomplished ease.

7 – The Polar Express (2004) – $307,514,317

Best seen in its IMAX 3D format, The Polar Express (now a Xmas staple) sees Zemeckis experimenting for the first time with motion capture and gives Tom Hanks the chance to emulate Alec Guinness’s eight role appearance in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). It’s a heartwarming tale, with a plethora of breathtaking visuals and sequences – the train racing across a frozen lake as the ice breaks up is simply stunning – and if it’s a little too smothered in saccharine at times, then it’s a small price to pay for a movie that in terms of its original look (and the problems that come with it) is endlessly fascinating to watch.

6 – A Christmas Carol (2009) – $325,855,863

Zemeckis teams with Jim Carrey for a version of Dickens’ classic tale that dials back on The Polar Express‘s sometimes overbearing sentimentality, and offers all kinds of visual tricks and complexities as the director tries once more to convince audiences that motion capture is the way of the future. But even though many of the issues surrounding facial expressions and physical movement that hampered The Polar Express and Beowulf have been addressed, there’s still an inherent “unreality” to the characters that, in the end (and despite the movie’s success), audiences couldn’t ignore, or overlook.

5 – Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) – $329,803,958

When Who Framed Roger Rabbit was first released, there were plenty of people who were fooled by the opening Baby Herman cartoon into thinking the whole movie was going to be animated. That might have been a good move on Zemeckis’ part, but how less satisfying it would have been than this perennial crowd-pleaser, both an homage to the Golden Age of Animation, and the most expensive movie (animated or otherwise) made in the Eighties. It’s an almost perfect blend of comedy, drama, pathos and nostalgia that moves at a cracking pace, and has so many visual gags in it you can’t catch them all in a single viewing. Roger is adorable, his wife Jessica Rabbit “isn’t bad… [she’s] just drawn that way”, and when revealed, Judge Doom is one of the scariest villains in any movie, period.

4 – Back to the Future Part II (1989) – $331,950,002

Many people felt that Back to the Future Part II was too complex, too convoluted, and too much of a head-scratcher, especially when Marty travelled back to 1955 to ensure his parents got together – again. But it’s the movie’s complex understanding of time travel, and the consequences that can arise when time is tinkered with, that makes this first sequel such an unexpected joy to watch. It’s also darker and more cynical than the first and third movies, but Zemeckis handles the material with confidence and no small amount of flair. For some fans, this is the best movie in the trilogy.

3 – Back to the Future (1985) – $381,109,762

The movie that made Zemeckis’ career, Back to the Future is a delight from start to finish, a beautifully rendered love poem to a bygone era, and one of the smartest sci-fi comedies ever made (if not the smartest). Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd make for an inspired teaming, and the whole thing is both whimsical and irresistible, with some classic lines of dialogue (“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”), and a whole raft of smart, enagaging performances. A movie you can watch over and over again and never tire of it.

2 – Cast Away (2000) – $429,632,142

If all you take away from Cast Away is that Tom Hanks lost an awful lot of weight to convince viewers his character was living on a desert island, and that he talked (a lot) to a volleyball called Wilson, then you’re missing the point of a movie that paints a vivid, unsentimental portrait of a man believed missing at sea who learns the art of survival the hard way. Hanks gives one of his best-ever performances, but the script includes too many longeuers for comfort, and the final third fails to match the impetus of the opening scenes. Zemeckis shows a keen eye for the practicalities of surviving on a desert island, and along with a committed Hanks, ensures the audience is just as invested in Hanks’s character getting off the island as he is.

1 – Forrest Gump (1994) – $677,945,399

Unsurprisingly, it’s the Oscar-winning home run that is Forrest Gump which sits atop this list. A perfect combination of director, script and star, the movie blends so many disparate elements, both thematically and visually (and with such confidence), that it’s easy to forget just how much of a surprise this movie was when it appeared over twenty years ago. Hanks, arguably, has never been better, and the same can be said of Zemeckis, who displays a fearlessness in handling the material that he’s never quite managed to recapture in his work since then.

Consultant surgeon Tora Hamilton (Mitchell) wants to have a baby. After four miscarriages – and with no real reason why they should be happening – Tora and her husband, Duncan (Graves) relocate to his hometown in the Shetland Islands from New York. She starts afresh in the local hospital, while he works on an industrial project elsewhere on the island. She’s welcomed by one and all, especially by Duncan’s parents, Richard and Elspeth (Robb, Monaghan), who have arranged both their jobs, the house they live in, and the hassle-free adoption of a baby eight months from then via a specialised clinic on a neighbouring island. Everything is perfect.

But then Tora discovers the body of a young woman buried in the peat at the rear of the house, and everything stops being so perfect. The woman had died as her heart was cut from her body, and strange runes have been carved into her back. Tora also notices tell-tale signs that the woman had given birth a week or two before her death. The later discovery of a ring bearing the initials of a local councillor’s wife makes Tora believe she’s identified the young woman’s body, but she’s dismayed to learn that the woman in question died several years before. Unconvinced that she could be wrong in her belief about the woman’s identity, she challenges the local police, led by D.I. McKie (McElhinney), along with Sgt. Dana Tulloch (Crawford), to look into the matter further. She begins her own parallel investigation, one that touches on a local legend involving male firstborns.

She also finds herself becoming suspicious of Duncan, as well as several of the more important men on the island, all of whom have a single male child that was the result of a pregnancy with their first wives; what makes it all so strange is that these women all died soon after their pregnancies, and some from a stage four cancer that precludes their being pregnant in the first place. She and Sgt. Tulloch find linking evidence of a fraudulent use of charity funds, as well as a connection with the adoption clinic. But when Tulloch is killed, her death leads to the confession of the local solicitor; he admits to killing the woman found by Tora, and more besides. Everything is resolved – or, at least it seems to be – until eight months later, when Tora and Duncan are on the verge of completing their adoption of an unwanted baby.

The Denver Post had this to say about the novel on which Sacrifice is based: “The page turner of the summer… Extraordinary”. High praise indeed, but the same can’t be said for Peter A. Dowling’s muddled, plodding adaptation, which struggles to maintain a coherent or consistent tone, and which steadfastly refuses to explain its fractured storyline in any great depth or detail. So much goes unexplained that after a while, the viewer has no choice but to either go with the movie and hope for the best, or stage a King Canute-like attempt to stem the tide of narrative short cuts and poorly handled plot developments that make up large parts of Dowling’s untidy screenplay.

Thrillers like Sacrifice often require more of a commitment to suspended disbelief than usual. The quiet, seemingly idyllic island community, the hint of magical fantasy that informs local beliefs and behaviours, the sense of a long-term mystery needing to be solved, the plucky heroine going up against a shadowy menace that will protect itself at any cost – all these elements, if mishandled, can undermine the overall mood that the movie is attempting to create. And so it proves here, with Bolton’s well-received novel churned over repeatedly and reduced to a mass of warmed-over clichés. It’s almost as if Dowling couldn’t be bothered to make any of it even halfway plausible, from Tora’s opening miscarriage (which takes place while she ministers to a woman about to give birth – oh, the irony!), to the scene where a conveniently placed cleaner allows her access to the dental wing of the hospital, and all the way to the end and the moment where the chief villain hands Tora a sacrificial dagger and then stands directly behind her (what could possibly happen next?).

These and other moments will have even the most casual of viewers scratching their heads in disbelief, and faced with such ill-advised decisions, the cast have no choice but to keep a straight face and do their best against all the odds. Mitchell, an actress who just doesn’t seem to get the right breaks career-wise (seriously, 2016 has seen her in this, London Has Fallen, and The Darkness – time to rethink her representation perhaps?), and while she’s often been the brightest thing in some truly mediocre movies, not even she can rescue a movie that doesn’t allow its central character to grow or develop in any way. Likewise, Graves is saddled with the kind of secondary role that requires him to pop up from time to time, act shady on occasion to attract suspicion, and then pull action hero duty against a secondary villain in a vain attempt to inject some excitement into a movie that’s been determinedly second-rate up until then. It’s a thankless role, and Graves looks increasingly put out by the role’s lack of, well, everything, as the movie progresses.

Dowling also fumbles the use of local folklore, neither explaining it fully or giving the viewer any clue as to why its practices would be maintained in a more contemporary setting (though, on the plus side, this does mean the chief villain doesn’t get to monologue his way through the inevitable cliff-top showdown). And the whole thing is so unnecessarily convoluted it’s a wonder any of the participants can keep track of what they’re doing and why – just like the audience. Ultimately, Sacrifice is a movie that doesn’t try hard enough to be anything other than just about acceptable as a time waster.

Rating: 3/10 – another low-budget, poorly made thriller that at least acknowledges it doesn’t have pretensions, Sacrifice is so bad that at times you wonder if it wouldn’t have been improved by the introduction of some humour to leaven things out; a “meh” movie then, and one that cuts corners both narratively and through the erratic editing process, leaving the unsuspecting viewer to wish that they too had been killed and left in a peat bog, thus ending their misery at watching a movie that wants to be like The Wicker Man (1973) but ends up being more like The Wicker Tree (2011).

Disney’s decision to remake their animated classic, The Jungle Book (1967) as a live-action movie has certainly paid off handsomely at the box office, having taken $966,220,138, while also garnering quite a bit of critical approbation. And though they’ve tinkered with this sort of thing before now – 101 Dalmatians (1996), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Cinderella (2015) – it’s looking as if the House of Mouse is going all out to re-invent its animated classics as live-action classics as well. 2017 will bring us Beauty and the Beast, with Emma Watson, while various other projects are in equally various stages of development, from Dumbo (to be directed by Tim Burton), to Pinocchio, to Mulan. It’s an ambitious scheme, and some movies are likely to stand or fall based on how popular they were in their animated form, so it will be interesting to see which movies get adapted and which ones are successful. But one burning question remains, and it’s this week’s two-part Question of the Week:

Has Disney gone remake crazy at the expense of more original projects, and if so, should we be pleased and excited, or deflated and demoralised by the prospect?

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Is it really that time again, to look ahead to the coming year and hope against all previous experience that things will get better, that Hollywood will launch itself wholeheartedly into making original, entertaining, thought-provoking movies that aren’t creatively moribund? Well, yes it is, but in the spirit of recent changes on thedullwoodexperiment the movies highlighted here and in Part 2 won’t feature very many of the tentpole movies that will be hyped to death between now and their release next year, because, well, that’s what everyone else will be doing. So, here’s the first batch of contenders looking to conquer our hearts and minds in 2017. How many will you see, and how many will become new favourites?

1) Loving Vincent – A project that has literally taken years to accomplish (more than it takes Pixar or Dreamworks to produce one of their movies), Loving Vincent is the world’s first painted animation feature. It also incorporates traditional 2D animation and rotoscoping into its visual structure, and features the voice talents of Saoirse Ronan, Chris O’Dowd and Aidan Turner amongst others. The Vincent in question is Van Gogh, and the movie explores the mysteries surrounding his life and death, and will do so in a way that promises to expand the possibilities of animation in a whole new, breathtaking way.

2) Granite Mountain – In June 2013, a wildfire ignited south of Prescott, Arizona that would later claim the lives of nineteen firemen as they fought to bring the blaze under control. The men were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, and Joseph Kosinski’s tribute to them and their valiant efforts has attracted a stellar cast that includes Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, James Badge Dale, and the ever-reliable Jeff Bridges.

3) The Death and Life of John F. Donovan – Xavier Dolan directs a hopefully compelling drama that examines the consequences and moral contradictions that arise when a movie star, John F. Donovan (played by Kit Harington) is revealed to have corresponded with a child actor (who’s eleven). Assumptions are made, and Donovan’s career and reputation are put at risk. Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon and Jessica Chastain round out the cast, and for the eagle-eyed. there’s a cameo from Adele.

4) Tulip Fever – A project that was filmed in 2014 and has sat on the shelf since then doesn’t sound like a movie with much to recommend it, but Justin Chadwick’s adaptation of Deborah Moggach’s novel of 17th Century romance and drama amongst the art scene in Amsterdam, and based on a script by Tom Stoppard no less, doesn’t have to mean it’s a turkey ready-basted for the oven. It also features an eclectic cast that includes Zach Galifianakis, Alicia Vikander, Jack O’Connell, Christoph Waltz, and Judi Dench, but however it turns out, this should be interesting to watch if nothing else.

5) The Coldest City – Based on the graphic novel by Antony Johnston, The Coldest City sees James McAvoy’s undercover MI6 agent sent to Berlin during the Cold War to recover a list of double agents that’s gone missing while also investigating the death of a fellow agent. It’s highly likely that the two things will be connected, but with the likes of Toby Jones, Charlize Theron and John Goodman to help muddy the waters, it’s also likely that McAvoy’s character will be fighting for his own life before the movie’s over.

6) The Circle – Originally due to hit our screens this year, James Ponsoldt’s adaptation of the novel by Dave Eggers features Emma Watson as a young woman who lands a job at a powerful tech company and finds herself involved in a wide-ranging conspiracy that could hasten the way in which surveillance technology erodes personal privacy. With Tom Hanks as a mysterious colleague whose loyalties Watson’s character can’t be completely certain of, this has the potential to be a whip-smart thriller, and quite timely as well.

7) War for the Planet of the Apes – Very little is known about this third entry in the new Apes franchise, but the good news is that Andy Serkis is back as Caesar, and Woody Harrelson is on board as the movie’s chief villain. Whether or not the title means there’ll be more action this time round remains to be seen, but as long as the dramatic threads of Rise… and Dawn… are maintained, then there’s no reason to expect anything but another intelligently handled entry in a series that’s been a surprise success from day one.

8) T2: Trainspotting – A sequel that many, many people have been waiting for, the awkwardly titled T2: Trainspotting reaches us with Danny Boyle returning to the helm, and reunited with the original cast (less Kevin McKidd). Based on Irvine Welsh’s novel, Porno, this promises to be as scabrous and deliciously crude as its predecessor, and if the tone is right, could be one of the more deliberately unapologetic movies released in 2017.

9) Yeh Din Ka Kissa – It’s an indie movie with a classic indie set up: an estranged family gathers for an event to celebrate the father’s work. What long-lasting emotional traumas will be brought up, and which long-buried secrets will be disinterred? Only writer/director Noah Baumbach knows, but with the likes of Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson taking part, Yeh Din Ka Kissa has all the potential to be a must-see dramedy.

10) The Shape of Water – Guillermo del Toro returns after the disappointment of Crimson Peak with this eerie fantasy set against the backdrop of the Sixties and the Cold War between Russia and America. Sally Hawkins is the janitor working in a lab where a mysterious “amphibious man” is being held. Cue elements of romance, danger, and (no doubt some) horror as Hawkins’ character decides that the “amphibious man” should be freed. Del Toro seems to be walking a bit of a tightrope in achieving the necessary credibility for his tale, but it’s a project he’s been working on for some time, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

11) Molly’s Game – The directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin, this adaptation by the man himself of Molly Bloom’s memoir, features the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain as the writer who set up and ran an international high stakes poker game, and became the subject of an FBI investigation. Expect a screenplay liberally strewn with Sorkin’s trademark intelligent dialogue, and a close examination of a world that few people get to experience.

12) Battle of the Sexes – It’s true story time as husband and wife directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris take on the media circus that surrounded the 1973 tennis match between World No. 1 Billie Jean King (played by Emma Stone) and ex-champ Bobby Riggs (a well-chosen Steve Carell). It’s an event that cries out for comedic treatment, and hopefully the true absurdity of both the reasons for the match and the eventual game itself will be highlighted in such a way that audiences unfamiliar with it all will be wondering, How on earth?

13) Same Kind of Different As Me – A story that focuses on faith and how much it can transform a person’s life, Same Kind of Different As Me features Greg Kinnear as an art dealer whose relationship with a dangerous homeless man (played by Djimon Hounsou) could be the key to saving his marriage. With Renée Zellweger as the wife, and supporting roles for Jon Voight and Olivia Holt, this drama may not attract a wide audience, but it does appear to have enough going for it to be a strong alternative to the usual mainstream fare.

14) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – James Gunn and crew return with a sequel that, if handled properly (and there’s no reason to suspect otherwise), will prove to be just as energetic and enjoyable as its predecessor. There will be other superhero movies released in 2017 – inevitably – but it’s this that has the best chance of rising above its competitors and showing them how superhero movies should be made (and yes, that means you, Warner Bros.).

15) Weightless – Set against the music scene in Austin, Texas, this could be veteran director Terrence Malick’s Nashville, but it’s just as likely that he’ll give us yet another elliptical, narrative-lite exploration of a character’s angst-ridden ennui that’s driven by their inability to connect with the people around them. As usual, Malick has assembled an amazing cast that includes Michael Fassbender, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Cate Blanchett, Benicio Del Toro, and Natalie Portman, but while his recent, prolific output is to be welcomed, let’s hope this outing has more of a story than some recent releases.

16) The Book of Henry – Naomi Watts is the mother of a child genius (played by child star du jour Jacob Tremblay), who learns that something terrible is happening in the house next door, and that her son is not only aware of it, but has come up with a plan to deal with it and put things right. But her decision to put her son’s plan into action (inevitably) doesn’t go as planned. Directed by Colin Trevorrow from a script by Gregg Hurwitz, this could be a dark horse in the thriller stakes.

17) Shock and Awe – Ostensibly a drama that hopefully sees a return to form for director Rob Reiner, the title refers to the term used by George Bush to allude to the US Army’s approach to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But the movie itself concerns a group of journalists who begin to doubt the President’s claim that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, and that the War in Iraq is as legitimate as he claims. Reiner’s assembled another great cast, including Woody Harrelson, Milla Jovovich, Alec Baldwin, and Tommy Lee Jones, and if the script points up the irregularities and misinformation the US government fed to the media, then this could be as pertinent a look at government perfidy now as it was then.

18) The Zookeeper’s Wife – Another true story, another Jessica Chastain movie, this sees her play Antonina Zabinski, who with her husband, Jan, was a keeper at the Warsaw Zoo during World War II. Determined to save as many of the zoo animals, and people, as she could, Antonina took tremendous risks in avoiding detection and capture by the Nazis, and in the hands of Niki Caro, this has all the potential of being a gripping thriller about personal courage against tremendous odds.

19) American Made – It’s had its fair share of problems – two wrongful death lawsuits so far – and the concept: a pilot working for the CIA also works for a cartel running drugs, has potential at least, but American Made‘s success will hinge entirely on two men: director Doug Liman and star Tom Cruise. It’s a great combination, and should result in an action thriller that provides jaded action junkies with enough adrenaline-fuelled sequences to keep a perma-smile on their faces, but it’s the story that really needs to be solid if it’s all going to work properly.

20) The LEGO Batman Movie – The movie that’s most likely to be the best DC superhero movie released in 2017, The Lego Batman Movie sees the brick-solid Caped Crusader (once again voiced by Will Arnett) battling a horde of enemies including the Joker (Zach Galifianakis) and Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate), while also trying to raise his adopted son Dick Grayson (Michael Cera). This will be cool, funny, action-packed, and in a weird not-weird way, able to make grown men – okay, fanboys – cry.

21) Bright – This is one of the more out there movies coming out in 2017, as David Ayer directs a script by Max Landis that references a world where fantasy characters such as elves and orcs have become integrated into human society and everyone gets along. It gets generic though as Will Smith’s LAPD cop is assigned an Orc partner, and while details are being kept under wraps, it’s likely that they’ll have to investigate a murder, or a case of corruption, that ultimately leads to a behind the scenes villain who hates the status quo. But Landis has promised the action will be incredible, and Ayer is no slouch in that department, so we’ll just have to wait and see just how batshit crazy it all is.

22) Jungle – “If you go down to the jungle today…” – it’s bound to end badly. And that’s the likelihood in a thriller directed by Greg McLean that stars Daniel Radcliffe as one of a group of friends who go trekking through the Bolivian jungle with a guide who isn’t all he says he is. Based on a true story, with Radcliffe playing Yossi Ghinsberg, who ended up lost and alone in said jungle back in 1981, this could well be a nerve-shredding experience, but only if McLean puts the hugely disappointing The Darkness behind him and trusts in the material.

23) My Cousin Rachel – An adaptation of the novel by Daphne Du Maurier (and which was previously filmed in 1952 with Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton), this romantic drama spiced with intrigue and revenge features Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin as the cousins whose relationship becomes increasingly more intimate even though he suspects her of murdering his guardian. Roger Michell directs, and sensibly, the period setting is retained, making this a rare historical drama in amongst all the other releases in 2017.

24) Rebel in the Rye – A biopic of renowned, and reclusive, author J.D. Salinger, with Nicholas Hoult taking on the role, this also features Kevin Spacey as Whit Burnett, Salinger’s mentor at Columbia University, Zoey Deutch as Oona O’Neill, who had a short romance with Salinger in the late 40’s, and Sarah Paulson as Dorothy Olding, who was his agent. It remains to be seen if Danny Strong’s examination of Salinger’s life will reveal anything new about the writer, but he’s an intriguing character, and one worth taking a closer look at.

25) Beauty and the Beast – With the success of Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book, Disney adds another live-action adaptation of one of their animated classics to the roster. Emma Watson is Belle, Dan Stevens is the Beast, while the likes of Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci put flesh on the “bones” of all those ornaments and dinnerware we’ve come to know and love. But as with The Jungle Book, it remains to be seen just how many of the original animated classic’s wonderful songs will be kept in place.

Ricky Baker (Dennison) is a problem child. He’s in the care system, and has a reputation for disobedience, stealing, spitting, running away, throwing rocks, kicking stuff, defacing stuff, burning stuff, loitering, and graffiti-ing (and that’s just the stuff Child Services knows about). In short, he’s a real bad egg. But he’s been given one last chance: to be looked after by Bella Faulkner (Te Wiata) and her grouchy husband Hec (Neill) on their farm. Bella is endlessly upbeat despite a tendency for inappropriate comments (“Whoo! You’re a big fella. Who ate the guy who ate all the pies, eh?”), but her heart’s in the right place and she more than compensates for Hec’s less than welcoming behaviour. Ricky runs away the first night, but doesn’t get very far, and soon he’s running away each night – but he’s always back in time for breakfast.

Responding to Bella’s ministrations, Ricky soon settles in and begins to take an interest in the farm and Hec’s role. Hec teaches Ricky to shoot, and they begin to form a bond. When Ricky’s birthday comes around, the Faulkners get him a dog, which he names Tupac. But tragedy strikes, and Ricky is required to go back into the care system. Refusing to go he heads off into the Bush, and determines to remain in hiding. Hec soon finds him, and they begin the return journey home when Hec breaks his ankle. Forced to stay in the Bush while his ankle heals, six weeks pass, during which Child Services, in the form of would-be Agatha Trunchbull, Paula Hall (House), and the police, search for the missing pair. An encounter at a lodge with a trio of hunters who are looking for Ricky and Hec leads to Hec being regarded as a pervert, and Ricky having been kidnapped.

Ricky and Hec go on the run, and decide to hole up in the Bush until the search for them peters out. They survive by catching or foraging for food, use the “Knack” – a kind of semi-mystical knowledge that allows them to avoid being found and to survive in the wilderness – and slowly and surely learn to trust and respect and depend on each other. But the search for them continues unabated, thanks to Paula Hall’s determination that “no child is left behind”, and the occasional help afforded them by strangers such as young girl Kahu (Ngatai-Melbourne), and raving conspiracy theorist Psycho Sam (Darby). But inevitably the pair are tracked down and it only remains to be seen if they go out with a bang or a whimper.

An adaptation of the novel Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is one of the most enjoyable and endearing movies you’re likely to see all year. It has charm by the bucket load, an irresistible central character in Ricky Baker, is peppered with some of the funniest dialogue heard in a very loooong time, and features some absolutely stunning New Zealand scenery. And because it all takes place in New Zealand there’s a fantastic Lord of the Rings joke to round things off. It’s a movie that, thanks to the efforts of writer/director Taika Waititi, provides enough comic indulgence for two movies.

It features a quartet of wonderfully bizarre and idiosyncratic performances as well, from Neill’s wonderfully arch turn as a man with all the parental skills of a confirmed malcontent, to Te Wiata’s brief but heartfelt portrayal of a woman for whom the act of caring compensates greatly for the one regret she’s ever had in life, to House’s grotesque Child Services agent, a loud, over-earnest, bullying monster of a woman who won’t be beaten by Ricky at any cost, as evidenced by this brilliant exchange:

Ricky Baker: I’ll never stop running!Paula: Yeah, and I’ll never stop chasing you – I’m relentless, I’m like the Terminator.Ricky Baker: I’m more like the Terminator than you!Paula: I said it first, you’re more like Sarah Connor, and in the first movie too, before she could do chinups.

But when all’s said and done, this is Dennison’s movie. He owns the role of Ricky Baker as if he’s played it all his life, from the constant gangsta/thug life referrals, all the way to the petulant disregard for others he uses as a shield against getting hurt. Dennison is nothing short of superb here, soaking up Waititi’s fluid direction and relaying with disarming simplicity the problems of being in a care system that doesn’t actually care about him. He’s also a great physical comedian, using his size in unexpected ways to draw out several moments of equally unexpected humour. And his timing isn’t too bad, either. Witness the scene where he tries to cajole Hec into looking for a Russian bride online: when Hec looks at him with disdain, Ricky’s deadpan “Too soon?” is served up to perfection.

In amongst the humour, Waititi is wise enough to keep the sermonising about the importance of family ties, and just what makes a family, to a minimum, and the demonisation of Child Services via the character of Paula is kept from becoming too silly or ridiculous thanks to Waititi’s assured handling of his own script, and House’s confident awareness of the character’s narrative limitations. She’s a cartoon figure in many respects, and in some ways the Yosemite Sam to Ricky’s Bugs Bunny, but not drawn or portrayed too broadly to be completely obnoxious or hateful. (There’s a sad back story there, no doubt, and one that would be good to know more about.) The relationship between Ricky and Hec is allowed to develop naturally, and is helped by the passage of time. Neill and Dennison work very well together, and the early scenes where they clash adds poignancy later on when it becomes clear to both of them just how much they need each other.

As mentioned before, the whole thing plays out against the backdrop of some spectacular New Zealand scenery – the opening credits sequence as the camera skims the treetops of the Bush sets the tone for the movie’s overall look and feel – and DoP Lachlan Milne captures the rugged beauty of the Bush itself and the surrounding terrain with clarity and precision; it’s a visually splendid movie to watch. And to cap it all off, the soundtrack, with its mix of original compositions and well-chosen songs – Nina Simone’s version of Sinnerman is put to particularly good use – adds an extra layer of finesse to a movie that already has more than enough finesse already.

Rating: 9/10 – a feel-good movie that doesn’t even have to try too hard to make its audience laugh or cry, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is beautifully observed, beautifully constructed, and effortlessly satisfying; Waititi is to be congratulated for taking material that could have been treated with far less care than is shown here and making it feel special, and for making a movie about a fat kid and his grumpy “uncle” that is nothing short of “majestical”.

It’s the opening night of the 60th BFI London Film Festival 2016, and to kickstart the Festival there’s a Gala screening of A United Kingdom, the true story of Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana who came to the UK in the late 1940’s and married Ruth Williams, a clerk at Lloyd’s of London. Their interracial marriage caused concerns both in the UK and in Botswana, and both politically and socially. The movie stars David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike as the couple who challenged the racist attitudes of two countries, and advance word on the movie is that it’s a remarkable portrait of the turbulent period it’s set in. If it is, then it’s in very good company, as over the years the programmers of the Festival have managed to secure some amazing, and varied, movies to occupy their Opening Night slot. Here are just a dozen of those movies.

A portmanteau of stories connected by the titular animal, Wiener-Dog is the kind of quirky, off-kilter indie movie that attracts audiences attuned to quirky, off-kilter indie movies. That’s to say there’s a certain audience out there for it, and it’s a movie that does its best to be quirky and off-kilter, but as with most portmanteau movies – indie-based or otherwise – some stories work and others don’t. And this won’t help it reach a wider audience. Making a quirky, off-kilter indie movie isn’t a bad idea, but in order for it to avoid being stuck in a niche market, it really needs to be thought through in better fashion than writer/director Todd Solondz has done here.

We first meet wiener-dog as he’s taken to a shelter. Why he’s taken there we never find out – it probably doesn’t matter, but if it does, Solondz isn’t looking to give the viewer any clues – but it’s not long before he’s given a home by Danny (Letts) as a surprise gift for his young son, Remi (Cooke). Remi’s mother, Dina (Delpy), isn’t too happy though about having a dog in the house, and she’s keen to make it clear that the dog is Remi’s responsibility alone. Remi has recently survived a brush with cancer, and is only too happy to have a dog to look after. But an unfortunate occurrence involving the dog and a granola bar leads to wiener-dog being taken back to the shelter.

Ear-marked to be put down, wiener-dog is saved at the last minute by veterinary nurse, Dawn (Gerwig). She takes the dog home with her and christens her Doody. At a local store she runs into Brandon (Culkin), who she knew in high school. He’s going on a trip to visit his brother, Tommy (Long) and his wife, April (Brown), and he invites Dawn along. With nothing better to do, she accepts. When they get to Tommy’s house, Dawn learns that he and April both have Downs Syndrome. When it’s time to leave, Dawn makes a gift of Doody to the couple.

We next see Doody with screenwriting professor Dave Schmerz (DeVito). Dave is trying to get his own screenplay produced, but his agent hasn’t even read it, and Dave is getting more and more depressed about it as a result. He’s lost his enthusiasm for teaching, and in turn has lost the respect of his students. Even when he’s assigned a new agent who tells him she may have a deal with Dreamworks set up for him, Dave’s newfound happiness is undermined by news that his students have complained about him. Angry and upset by this, Dave assembles a bomb, attaches it to Doody, and sends her into the college where he works.

Our final encounter with the dog is when she’s owned by Nana (Burstyn) and is called Cancer. Nana lives with her caregiver and appears miserable and grumpy. She receives a visit from her granddaughter, Zoe (Mamet), and her current boyfriend, Fantasy (Shaw), a performance artist she thinks is cheating on her. The visit is cut short before Nana can give any practical advice, and afterwards she has goes outside and has a dream where younger versions of herself endlessly repeat how better her life would have been if she’d been nicer to people, less critical of them etc.

There’s one last scene involving wiener-dog in animatronic form, but that’s basically it, a collection of four stories where the dog is largely coincidental to the tales being told, and the characters – as per Solondz’ usual penchant – are disillusioned, emotionally stunted, socially awkward lost souls who are unable to connect to others on any meaningful level. Now, there’s aways room for this kind of movie making, and in the past Solondz has been an accomplished purveyor of tales about such people. He’s pretty much built his career on the back of them, and Happiness (1998) is a superb example of what he can do when the muse takes him. But Wiener-Dog is neither as sharp as that movie, or as engaging. There’s Solondz’ trademark waspish humour, but unfortunately, it’s also not as acute as it needs to be.

The first tale is possibly the most satisfactory, with Remi’s persistent questioning of his mother leading to some of the most inappropriate parenting seen on screen for a while. Dina doesn’t do much to reassure Remi; instead she offers worst-case scenarios and semi-pious examples of times went horribly wrong for want of the right thing being done. It’s reassurance by scare tactics, and while Solondz is aiming for very black humour in these moments, the awfulness of Dina’s approach is just that: awful. Delpy is a superb actress, and she handles the dialogue well, but even she can’t find the fine line that stops emotional support from becoming emotional abuse.

The story involving Dawn and Brandon – characters reunited from Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) – runs out of ideas very quickly, and Solondz doesn’t have anything to offer in terms of the characters or their lives, other than that Dawn and Brandon both exist in the kind of emotional bubbles that are difficult for others to break through, and partly because the two of them aren’t especially aware that that’s the kind of lives they lead. Dave’s tale is flat and uninvolving, a tired story about a tired man that you don’t spend enough time with to really care about. DeVito is often a better dramatic actor than he’s given credit for, but here he just doesn’t have the material to work with. But spare a thought for Burstyn, who has even less to work with, and who is left to yield the floor to Mamet and her character’s own worries. The focus isn’t on Nana enough for the dream visitations of her younger self to have any relevance, and once they occur her tale is effectively over, leaving the viewer to wonder why the story was included in the first place.

The cast do their best, but Solondz maintains a dreary, desultory tone throughout, aiming perhaps for slice of life tales that are meant to be affecting and saying something about modern day ennui, but instead, giving the viewer brief character sketches that say little beyond the obvious, and which lack the necessary depth to make these characters sympathetic or intriguing. It’s hard to care about any of them, and in the end, Solondz reveals just how little he cares about them, or the dog, as he pulls the rug out from under the audience with a scene that’s so gratuitous and unnecessary that you feel like slapping him in the face for being so arbitrary and cruel.

Rating: 4/10 – with past glories fading away with every passing minute, Wiener-Dog is not the movie to sound hurrahs for Solondz’ return to movie making after five years away; as it squanders every opportunity to be interesting or appealing, the movie gets bogged down by its attempts to say something about the lives of the disconnected, and in doing so – and with an irony that only highlights Solondz’ clumsy approach to his own material – keeps its characters at a safe distance from the audience as well.

In The Darkness, a family returns home from a trip to the Grand Canyon, unaware that their autistic son has released an ancient supernatural force that had been imprisoned in a secret Anasazi location. Once the feuding Taylors – dad Peter (Bacon), mum Bronny (Mitchell), teenage daughter Stephanie (Fry), and son Michael (Mazouz) – get settled back into the routine of sniping at each other and generally ignoring the fact that their combined behaviours are slowly tearing the family apart, the inevitable strange things start to happen. First, the taps in the kitchen turn on by themselves…

… and with that, any aspirations to be or do anything different for the remainder of the movie goes so far out of the window you’re not even sure if it’s landed anywhere. The Darkness is a shockingly bad amalgam of horror tropes and the supposed best bits from other horror movies. But in the main it’s Poltergeist (1982) that gets ripped off the most here, from the American Indian connection to the spiritual healer recommended to Peter by his boss (Reiser), and all the way to the portal that opens up in Michael’s bedroom.

With the script having been cobbled together by director Greg McLean, Shayne Armstrong and Shane Krause, the movie ambles along on creative life support before it reaches the end and gives up the ghost entirely. Along the way it attempts to add depth by giving the Taylors their own personal demons to face as well as the ones formerly held at bay by Anasazi rituals. Peter once had an affair (though of course it didn’t mean anything), Bronny has a history of alcohol abuse, and Stephanie is bulimic (though one trip to the doctor’s seems to sort that one out). Personal demons, supernatural demons – what has this poor misguided family done to deserve all this? (What’s that? The supernatural demons are metaphors? Oh, right…)

There’s no shortage of cringeworthy moments in The Darkness (though the demons going by the collective name of Jenny is probably the best/worst), and the cast appear to have given up quite early on – Bacon in particular looks like he’s wondering if he could drop a few scenes and thereby lessen his involvement – but it’s McLean’s lack of focus on both the performances and the material that hurts the movie the most. With the script on only nudging terms with credibility – and yes, this is a horror movie, and yes, credibility is often the first thing to go when one is being made – it still needed a firmer hand at the controls, but McLean, now a long, long way from the glory days of Wolf Creek (2005) just lets the movie drift to a unsatisfactory finish that is at least in keeping with how unsatisfactory the rest of the movie has been.

Rating: 3/10 – meh horror that lacks commitment from all concerned, and offers nothing new… at all; daft, confusing, muddled, and dramatically inert for long stretches, The Darkness will make you feel uneasy – but, sadly, not for the right reasons.

Martin (Bateman) is a young boy whose stepfather is killed in a very violent fashion. His mother, Sophie (Bello), already on medication for depression, is acting strangely. She talks to someone called Diana (Vela-Bailey) who doesn’t appear to be real. But one night Martin sees the hand of an unnatural figure in his mother’s room. Scared, he finds it difficult to sleep properly, and instead, falls asleep at school. When this happens for a third time, and the school can’t get hold of Sophie, they contact his older sister, Rebecca (Palmer). Rebecca left home years before, shortly after her father (Sophie’s first husband) decided to leave for good himself. Rebecca looks after Martin, but thanks to the intervention of Child Services, isn’t allowed to do so full-time.

With the aid of her would-be boyfriend Bret (DiPersia), Rebecca finds herself quickly coming to terms with the fact that Diana is real – desite having died many years before – and needing to do something about the wraith’s deadly attacks on Martin and herself. Armed with the knowledge that Diana’s attacks only take place in the dark thanks to the extreme heliophobia she suffered from when she was alive, Rebecca and Martin take steps to protect themselves, and to get Sophie to admit that her childhood friendship with Diana is allowing the spectre to exist. But Diana has other plans…

Expanded on from his 2013 short movie of the same name, David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out is an efficient, no-nonsense horror thriller that takes its basic premise – lights on: no ghost, lights off: there it is – and finds various clever ways of keeping the central conceit from getting too stale too quickly, even at eighty-one minutes. While Diana’s back story only partially explains her reason for haunting Sophie and her family, and Diana herself isn’t quite as frightening as she’s meant to be, nevertheless, Sandberg succeeds in making her as credible a character (in the circumstances) as can be, and manages to achieve the same success with Sophie, Martin and Rebecca. Sandberg is helped by strong performances all round – Palmer is particularly good as Rebecca – and a script by Eric Heisserer that does its best in avoiding the pitfalls of dishing up too many horror movie clichés (though it does serve up two unsuspecting police officers as victims of Diana’s wrath, just to keep the momentum going).

The movie is strong on atmosphere, with certain scenes having a clammy, claustrophobic feel to them that isn’t entirely to do with the characters being in confined spaces, and Marc Spicer’s cinematography makes the darkness that surrounds the characters for most of the movie as threatening as possible thanks to some very good lighting choices and some expert framing. The look of the movie is of primary importance in how scary it is, and Sandberg provides viewers with a mix of generic visuals and heightened situations that is surprisingly uncomfortable to watch at times. It’s not entirely successful – Bret is a seriously one-note character, the basement of Sophie’s house conveniently reveals a secret that otherwise would never have been known, a confrontation with Sophie about Diana (and her death) features some very stilted and ill-chosen dialogue – but on the whole it’s a far better movie than expected.

Rating: 7/10 – a horror movie that dares to be different, and succeeds for the most part, Lights Out has a creepy central premise that’s handled well and makes for some effective jump scares (for a change); inevitably, a sequel has already been greenlit, but this is an effective, self-contained movie that stands on its own and proves that intelligence and horror can go hand in hand, and not just wave to each other in passing.

In Mumbai, a dabbawala is literally “one who carries a box”. A dabbawala is part of a delivery system that allows workers who don’t want to eat at a food stand or a restaurant, to have hot, home-cooked food for lunch. The lunchboxes are collected from the worker’s home in the morning, delivered in time for their lunch break, and then returned to the worker’s home by the evening. This service first started in 1890, and has grown to the point where anywhere between 175,000 and 200,000 lunchboxes are delivered every day, and incredibly, it’s estimated that dabbawalas make less than one mistake in every six million deliveries.

It’s this amazing service that forms the backdrop and set up for The Lunchbox, a wonderfully complex, and still very simple, May-December romance that develops between soon-to-retire claims actuary Saajan Fernandes (Khan) and housewife Ila (Kaur). Saajan is a widower, well-regarded in the workplace but somewhat withdrawn from his colleagues. He doesn’t socialise outside of work, and he appears to be resigned to remaining alone. Ila has a husband, Rajeev (Vaid) who is distant from her, and from their young child, Yashvi (Nagar). Ila wants Rajeev to play more of an active part in their marriage; some nights he comes home and doesn’t say a word. Ila’s aunty (Achrekar), who lives in the flat above them, suggests that Ila make delicious lunches for Rajeev, in order to help rekindle the romance they used to have.

But instead of Rajeev receiving the first of these lunches, it’s Saajan who gets to discover just how good a cook Ila is. When she realises that her husband hasn’t been receiving the lunches, she leaves a note in the next one, advising the person who is getting them, about the mistake. Saajan is amused by this, but he’s even more enamoured by the quality of Ila’s cooking. He replies to her note, and so begins a correspondence that both keep to themselves, and which enables both of them to feel that there is more to life than the boundaries that seem to keep them hemmed in. As their relationship begins to deepen, Saajan has to cope with the irritating interruptions and attention of his successor, Shaikh (Siddiqui), while Ila has to cope with her father’s long-term illness, and the effect it’s having on her mother (Dubey), and the realisation that Rajeev is having an affair.

The first, and so far, only feature from Mumbai-born Ritesh Batra, The Lunchbox is so deceptively simple, and so elegantly complex, that it’s difficult to work out which of these two aspects is the more effective. Ostensibly a romantic drama with comedic overtones, the movie resists the temptation to be acceptably superficial, and instead, lays the groundwork for perceptive ruminations on growing old in modern India, and what it means to accept the role in life you believe you’ve been given. Through Saajan’s listless acceptance of his fate as a widower with no future in retirement, the movie casts an observant eye over what it is to become inured to a certain way of life, and to regard change as unobtainable. Saajan believes his fate is unavoidable, and in believing so, can do nothing about it.

Ila wants her husband back from wherever it is that his mind is taking him. She at least believes she can change things back to how they were, and has yet to resign herself to a stale marriage of convenience. But Rajeev’s continued indifference, and Ila’s eventual discovery of his infidelity, both serve to leave her feeling trapped and unable to make a better life for herself and Yashvi. Thankfully, Saajan’s enjoyment of her food, and his willingness to engage with her via the notes they send each other, allows her to feel that there is hope for the future, whether she leaves Rajeev and goes to live in Bhutan with Yashvi and Saajan (as he suggests at one point), or even if it’s just her and her daughter.

For Saajan, things are made more complicated by his age and his position in the workplace. After thirty-five exemplary years in the same job, he’s retiring out of some sense of commitment to the memory of his late wife. Closed off from everyone, including himself from time to time, Saajan has resigned himself to a life of anonymity and seclusion, and in a place, Nashik, for which he has little actual enthusiasm. It’s only through the persistence of his successor, the garrulous and irritating Shaikh, and Ila’s notes, that Saajan begins to come out of his shell. He becomes more outgoing, less gloomy, and he tolerates Shaikh’s ebullient behaviour, even when he joins Saajan for lunch and the older man finds himself sharing with the younger man – and is surprised to find he’s happy to do so.

Saajan and Ila’s relationship develops to the point where the audience is practically praying that they’ll meet and properly fall in love, and not rely on the kind of epistolary romance that suits a novel but not necessarily a movie (unless that movie is Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship). But the course of true love is never known to run smoothly, and despite their obvious need for each other, Saajan’s awareness of the age difference between them leads him to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. An arranged meeting doesn’t go as planned, and their romance suffers as a result, leaving both parties to decide if what they had was even tangible. Decisions are made, and though they seem immutable, Batra’s clever script allows for optimism in the face of dramatic certainty.

Batra is helped immensely by his two leads. Khan is a perceptive, dignified actor, and he brings those qualities to bear on a role that requires him to reveal more and more about Saajan as the movie progresses. With his gaze registering bemused astonishment with every mouthful and smell of Ila’s cooking, Khan is a delight to watch, and he handles the disappointments and self-imposed barriers to living that Saajan endures with an emotional clarity that is an acting masterclass all by itself. Kaur is equally impressive. Whether Ila is trading quips or recipe tips with her aunty, or whether she’s coming to terms with the likelihood of a loveless marriage for years to come, the actress displays a range and an understanding of her character’s situation that is breathtaking to watch. Both actors are superb here, so much so that it’s very difficult to envisage anyone else in either role.

With Batra proving to be as good a screenwriter as he is a director, The Lunchbox is in very good hands throughout. He makes a background character out of the city of Mumbai, and the hustle and bustle of its streets and trains and buses – all constant reminders that life goes on around us, vibrant and compulsive, even if we choose to step back from it – is used to potent effect, as Saajan in particular experiences its highs and lows. Batra is aided by sterling work from DoP Michael Simmonds, and the movie’s slow, lyrical pace is courtesy of editor John F. Lyons. Scenes play out sometimes at such a stately pace that it’s hard to believe it’s all been agreed in advance, and that so many quiet moments could have such a cumulative, and remarkable effect. But the pace and the tone of the movie are aspects that have been achieved with a great deal of skill, and they serve the material with undisguised aplomb.

Rating: 9/10 – a beautifully observed, beautifully constructed movie that takes two trapped souls and sets them free by virtue of their finding in each other a kindred spirit, The Lunchbox is touching, affecting, stylish, and endlessly gracious in its delivery; a sparkling romantic drama that pays dividends from the very start, and which never short changes either its characters or its audience, it’s a movie that delights with ease, and lingers in the memory long after it’s over.

In 2010, a production of Fences, August Wilson’s award-winning play, won Tony’s for Best Revival of a Play, Best Actor and Best Actress. The two leads in the revival were Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, so if you think after watching the trailer that their performances look incredibly good – well, there’s the reason why. Set in the 1950’s, the movie examines the effects changes in race relations in the US have on an average African-American family, and in particular the dynamic between Washington’s struggling husband and father Troy, and his teenage son Cory (played by relative newcomer Jovan Adepo). With Washington making his first feature since The Great Debaters (2007), it will be interesting to see just how much of Wilson’s tale of bitter regret and personal despair is retained, and if the movie retains the play’s episodic structure. But from the trailer alone it does look as if Washington has made a challenging, powerful movie, and perhaps a sure-fire awards winner further down the line.

In Mean Dreams, Bill Paxton is the kind of backwoods sheriff we’ve seen quite a lot of recently: outwardly charming, seemingly decent, but beneath all that, as callous and conniving as any regular bad guy (and probably more so). But this is a small-town sheriff bordering on the psychotic, which makes his treatment and eventual pursuit of his daughter (Sophie Nélisse) and her wrong-guy-in-the-wrong-place boyfriend (Josh Wiggins) all the more gripping. Given the right role, Paxton is an actor you should never underestimate; he can take a viewer to some very dark places indeed, and often at the drop of a hat. This has all the hallmarks of such a role, and while the movie has a wintry feel to it that appears to suit the mood and tone of the movie, it’s still going to be Paxton who grabs all the attention – and he looks good and ready to do so.

There are always actors who pop up in movies and make an impression, but who still manage to retain an air of mystery and have audiences scratching their heads and asking themselves, “Didn’t I see him/her in that other movie?” Boyd Holbrook is one of those actors. He’s been quietly amassing a body of work that’s also been increasingly impressive ever since he first appeared in Milk (2008). Now, it looks as if The Free World, a taut thriller about second chances and personal redemption set against the backdrop of a domestic murder case, could be the movie to catapault Holbrook into the big(ger) leagues. If it doesn’t, then it’s unlikely Holbrook will be too worried. He’ll just carry on giving good performances in whatever movies he makes.